


What Did I Miss?

by buttsonthebeach



Series: Hamilton x Dragon Age [5]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: AUs, All of these are one-shots and missing scenes from my main fics, All three of those tags are only in Chapter 10, Angst, Blow Jobs, But you can read most with no knowledge of them, Childbirth, F/M, First Time Together, Fluff, Magic used in sex, Male Solo, Masturbation, Minor Adoribull, Morning Sex, One-Shots, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Parenthood, Pre-Relationship, Pregnancy, Several originally appeared on Tumblr, Sisters, Terminal Illnesses, VERY light bondage, sub!solas
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2018-09-26 20:40:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 67,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9921326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttsonthebeach/pseuds/buttsonthebeach
Summary: 1. Ruin - E; Solas tries to deny his growing admiration for Ellana2. Say Yes to This - E; Ellana's POV on their first time3. Impress Me - E; their second time together4. Magic - E; their third time together5. Intimacies - E; Solas knows he needs to save up every memory6. Unsaid - E; Ellana awakens to Solas's unexpected need7. Unbent - E; Solas goes to Ellana at Adamant8. Congratulations - T; a slight AU of "Body of Knowledge;" Dorian chews out Solas.9. Ancient and New - G; Ellana feels inadequate as a new mother10. New Again - E; Ellana learns that she likes to take control11. The Story of an Hour - G; Cullen reflects on how fatherhood has changed Solas12. River - T; Solas and Ellana reflect on the woman Ashara has become13. Dreams - M; an AU of "Body of Knowledge;" Solas and Ellana have a second child14. Blow Us All Away - G; Solas and his daughters grapple with the family legacy15. Helpless (Reprise) - G; Saeris has her first crush16-20. The Awakened AU - G-T; two sisters try to save their mother's life.New on 11/12/17 - chapters 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, and 12. Some are fluff, some are angst, some are smut!





	1. Ruin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! This fix contains various AUs and missing scenes from my three main fics: “The World Turned Upside Down,” “Body of Knowledge,” and “Awakened.” Most stand of these early ones stand well enough on their own; all are rated differently, with ratings noted in the summary.
> 
> This first one is rated explicit for Ellana’s brief nudity and Solas spending some quality time by himself at the end.
> 
> In this, Solas comes to understand and admire Ellana’s spirit and body over their first trip in the Hinterlands. It’s the earliest thing I have written for their relationship, which was fun. It was inspired by a remark Ellana makes in chapter 14 of ["Awakened"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10080125/chapters/22465256) about the time Varric and Cassandra taught her about “shem modesty.”

Solas was not terribly impressed by their Herald of Andraste. The bearer of his mark. Not at first.

He could not stop seeing a slave whenever he looked at her.

She was too skinny, clearly underfed, and marked for all to see. She had no magic, except for the twisted mark of his orb. She was the symbol of his failure.

He couldn't look at her, sometimes.

That thought changed during the first week they spent in the Hinterlands. After six days spent mapping much of the surrounding landscape of the Hinterlands, pushing back templars and mages alike, and closing nearby rifts, it was finally time to settle into the task of helping the refugees at the Crossroads. It had been an interesting six days, the most he’d spent in close contact with Lavellan since she’d awoken. She was opening up, slowly. No longer prone to long, stony silences or studying her three companions carefully, whether they were or were not looking. He supposed caution was a well-earned trait among the Dalish. Or any elf in this broken, twisted world, for that matter. It made sense to him. But it was more pleasant to be the subject of tight-lipped smiles instead of piercing eyes.

The day they started helping the refugees, she chatted idly with Cassandra, Varric, and him alike until they reached the area where they’d been told they could hunt rams. Then her transformation was instant. She’d told them already that she was one of the lead hunters for her clan, and he’d watched her fight both demons and humans over the last few days, but this was something different. She was born to this - single-minded, fluid, commanding. She moved with the grass and the trees and then with the herd, lined up her shots and took them with confidence. She was one with her body and her mind in a way that few people were, in his experience. As aware of each footstep and the twist of each muscle as she was the direction and strength of the breeze and the best place to strike. Aware of the exact cant of her hip when she stopped on a hill and turned back to him with a smirk, and of the teasing tone laced through her words.

“Hurry up, hahren.”

Looking up at her on that hill, he didn't see a slave, someone to pity or save. He saw a warrior. A body that was proud, sculpted - and, yes, beautiful - and a mind that was sharp.

After each of their battles in the previous days she’d been haggard, drawn, quiet. Now, with the rams laid out neatly before her, she was smiling.

“Perfect. Lots of meat on them, and the furs will make good blankets. I’ll break them down and we can head back.”

It was bloody, primal work, but she hummed as she did it, her knife flashing quickly in the sun. She was neat, precise. Professional. Not a savage at all.

“Something on your mind, Solas?” She asked.

He’d been staring.

“I am merely admiring your handiwork.”

She smiled. “Thank you. I’m not so sure about all the other things we’ve been doing - but this? This I can do.”

“What - kill defenseless animals?” Varric quipped.

“Help people,” she said, simply. “Provide for them. That’s my job. It’s been my job since I was sixteen.”

And she did smile wider than he’d ever seen that day when she passed the supplies out amongst the refugees, and it made her gray eyes brighter. And that night she stayed up with him, asking about the rifts they’d encountered so far (“why are some of them higher up than others? Why did that one have more despair demons than the others? How does my mark work?”) and then, tentatively, about himself (“Where did you grow up? Isn’t it dangerous to walk the Fade? Could we ever live side by side with spirits?”). And when they spoke of the dangers of his status as an apostate, how hard those gray eyes turned, how fierce her voice was.

“I will protect you. I wouldn't let anything happen to you.”

A fierce hunter, a protector, and yet marked not for cruel Andruil but for June, for the quiet forests where she was so at home. Her face lined with gentle arches and curling lines that highlighted her cheekbones and her bowed lips. Not Lavellan or the Herald anymore. Ellana.

She was the first thing he thought of when he woke the next morning. But it was only because she was already awake, the sound of her laughter drifting into the tent with the morning sun.

*

On their last morning in the Hinterlands before returning to Haven, Solas was the last out of the tents. They were staying at the Inquisition camp near the lake, and it reminded him too much of being at war. The _yes ser_ and _no ser_ and the requisitions and the rattle of plate and mail. He preferred their solitary camps in the wilderness, where he could at least pretend he was alone, and not drawn into a horror of his own making (as if this whole world wasn’t a horror of his own making).

He was allowing himself to sink into the stupor of his pain when a sudden shriek brought him to his senses.

“Herald!”

He was up at once, looking in the direction of the lake, where the shout came from - to see Ellana, bare as the day she was born, her back to him, brown skin and lean lines and the curve of her ass and when was the last time he held a woman in his arms -

Cassandra splashed into the water, a blanket thrown in front of her, blocking the view.

“Herald - you can't - what were you thinking?”

“What?” Ellana said, too bewildered to stop the Seeker from wrapping her up. “I thought - since we return to Haven today - I thought it would be good to bathe.”

He could read the disappointment in her now, though she tried to keep her emotions masked for the most part. She thought she was doing the right thing. That was all she ever wanted to do.

“Yes, but - Herald, in the middle of camp? What are you all staring at, anyway?” Cassandra’s sharp bark, made all the more menacing by her accent, was enough for the scouts and soldiers to immediately find a more productive use of their time.

“I don’t care,” she said, following the Seeker out of the water. “I wouldn’t be bathing if I cared.”

“They must not see you that way. It is unseemly. You should be a figure of respect not - desire.”

Ellana opened her mouth like she was about to press the point. Then she closed it, and studied first Cassandra and then Varric - and then him, still standing at a distance, though close enough to hear.

“What if it was just the four of us? Would I bathe openly then?” She asked.

“No.” Cassandra’s reply was immediate.

“What if it was just you and I, Seeker?”

“Well - perhaps, but I would ask you first, to ensure that you didn't prefer that we still maintained some modesty.”

“Modesty? Our bodies are the same. What would we see that would be so…?” She trailed off with a frustrated noise that the Seeker surely appreciated.

“It’s just a difference in culture,” Varric broke in at last. “Being naked just means something different here than it does in Dalish clans. You could be naked with someone and not think much of it, right? Not get any ideas about what kind of a person they were?”

“Besides a person who values being clean? Of course not.”

“And I take it you’ve seen enough naked people that it’s not exactly shocking to you, right?” He prompted.

“Yes.”

“Well, for most other Thedosians, we don’t usually see someone naked unless it means something. Something - important. And if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t care if strangers see you naked… you’re crazy or -”

“A whore.”

Varric winced. “Not my choice of words, but, yes.”

“Ah. I am sorry, then. I didn’t mean to offend.”

She didn’t wait to hear their replies, ducking back into the tent she’d shared with Cassandra instead. Cassandra shook her head and walked away, no doubt to scold the soldiers who’d stood slack-jawed at the sight of the Herald, while Varric settled back down to his breakfast. When Ellana emerged again, it was with her head ducked as she headed for the communal fire where the food was cooking. She looked up when she saw that he still stood there.

“I suppose I should apologize to you, too.” Her words had a searching tone in them, like she actually wasn’t quite sure if she should apologize or not. Trying to see just how much of a flat-ear he was.

“I was not offended,” he said.

“Well. That’s one success for the day.”

She scooped out her portion of the food into a nearby bowl, and then sat on one of the logs surrounding the fire. He hesitated before joining her, unsure if she wanted the company. But once he sat down, she spoke.

“If my Keeper could see me now. She said I should go to this Conclave because I’m comfortable around shems. My parents were city-dwellers before they joined the clan, so they used to be the ones who went into town for us. They’d take me along sometimes, too. Deshanna thought that would serve me well at the Conclave.” She jabbed her spoon into her bowl. “I guess I never tried taking my clothes off around any of them before.”

Her shoulders were hunched, her whole posture closed off. Gone was the easy grace of her movements in the hills and valleys, the little smile on her face.

“It was an honest mistake, one that I’m sure will be forgotten,” he said. As if it mattered whether he comforted her in this moment or not. As if any momentary comfort could matter, in the grand scheme of this mess. Then he felt the urge to keep pressing, to learn more about her. As if their time together would matter. “Is that the only reason she sent you?”

“Well, that and I’m expendable.”

That gave him pause.

“I’m sorry?”

“I’m a good hunter - good enough to survive on my own and defend myself - but there are better hunters in the clan. Ones with families. My parents are gone. I never had any siblings. I don’t have a mate or children. The clan will be fine without me.”

She said it all with the practiced ease of someone who knew their place in the world. She didn’t even sound particularly upset by it.

He burned in his chest, and didn’t know why. The world felt unsteady beneath his feet, just as it had in the snow that fateful day when the rift closed and then he turned and saw her face for the first time.

“You are not expendable.”

Now she watched him the way she had before. Considering. Studying.

“Thank you,” she said.

She studied him on the way back that morning, when she thought he wasn’t looking, and for the first time in months, he felt a little lighter under her gaze.

Then his heart lifted when she found him after the meeting with her advisors. Not for any practical reason. Just to sit on the low wall near his cabin and share silence with him, looking up at the Breach.

“They want us to go to Val Royeaux,” she said at last. “I’m afraid. This is so much bigger than anything I expected.”

“It is wise to be afraid - but remember that you do not go alone,”

“So you’ll come?” she said.

“Of course.”

Only because he needed to remain close to her to monitor the mark. To keep puzzling out how he could fix this.

“Thank you, Solas.”

He pretended not to recognize the feeling low in his gut when he watched her walk away.

Just as he pretended he did not watch her as they rode out the next day, as she moved among the crowds of Val Royeaux.

Just as he pretended he was not disappointed if they went a day without speaking alone, just the two of them.

Just as he pretended he wasn’t stupid enough to call her graceful, to slip into old, teasing rhythms that promised things he couldn’t give.

Just as he pretended it was not her he thought of the night they returned to Haven, when he took himself in hand. It was his first chance at privacy in days. That was all. It was a need like any other, like food or water, this quick tugging at his own rigid flesh, these bitten-back moans. He did not take his time with himself, did not even try to slick up his length with spit or oil. He simply slid his leggings down to his knees and began, once it became apparent the ache would not go away. He pumped his hand quickly, efficiently, the exact right pressure and speed to make his own breath hitch - no need to imagine anything at all, just to focus on the pleasure radiating outward from the root of him, the quick build of it - but he still imagined her, still saw the sunlight reflecting off the lake, along her toned shoulders, down the curve of her back. He imagined his hands clenched tight around her ass, and her above him, moving with that sinuous grace, her low voice broken around the sound of his name, and he was pulling pulling pulling and then he scrambled for the cloth he’d set neatly aside before he began and spent with a soft groan.

He did not picture her face when he fell asleep.

Because there was one thing he could not pretend: there was nothing but ruin down this road, if he followed it.

But she still smiled at him, and he still found himself putting one foot in front of the other, and that ruin that loomed began to feel like nothing so much as happiness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took the smutty bit at the end out and put it back in about four times. I am terribly indecisive.
> 
> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/).


	2. Say Yes to This

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When the Hamilton Mixtape came out and they released this song, reversing the point of view of ["Say No To This"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8455849/chapters/19393006), I couldn’t resist the idea of reversing the POV of my own chapter of the same name.

Screaming - mud and blood and death and fear and nothing would ever be right again - the _ weight _ , the absolute weight of it all - not just the dragon on top of her chest but everything - dead dead dead soldiers crying out for the Herald, the sound of the mountain coming down on Haven, on her, the eyes of the Winter Palace, the war table tokens in her hand - Keeper Deshanna’s words as she left -  _ we will be waiting on you, da’len  _ \- dimly she thought someone was calling her name but it didn't matter - it was just someone else to let down, another body for the sucking mud beneath her, more fingers to reach up and drag her down -

“It’s me, da’len. It's me.”

Solas.

In her room.

She was in her room.

It was a nightmare.

She was sweaty and she was crying but she was in her room and he was here. Speaking soft words she couldn’t quite hear as he drew her into his lap, against his chest. She tried to focus on the rough cloth of his shirt against her cheek and his fingers on her scalp, but her muscles were still so tight they hurt. Any day now. Any day now would be the day they realized she was a fraud, a fool merrily leading them down a path to destruction - 

“You’re going to be fine, ma sa’lath. I’m here.”

_ My only love. _ He’d never called her that before. It was not so long ago that he’d called her vhenan for the first time. And since then, what had she done? Pestered him like a dog in heat for more. More foolishness.

“It will all be all right.” His hands ran up and down her back and finally she began to unclench and cease shaking.

“I had - the most terrible nightmare,” she said when she trusted herself not to cry.

“I know. I found you in the Fade and could not calm you, so I came here.”

Of course it wasn’t enough that he guarded her body by day when they fought Red Templars and Venatori and demons and Creators knew what else. Of course he - wise and kind and quiet and warm - watched over her spirit when she slept.

Warm. He was here in her bedroom, warm and solid and pressed close to her, wearing less than usual. Longing struck her hard, so sudden it closed her throat again. Not just the longing for release that had her snatching whatever moments she could with him. The longing for safety. For belonging. The longing to be cared for. But what had she ever done to deserve anything like that, when there were bodies trapped beneath the avalanche at Haven, when she still had not written to Keeper Deshanna, when she had no idea what to do about their suspicions of what was happening with the Wardens? Yet here he sat, cradling her like she was precious.

“I don’t deserve you.” The words slipped out, really. They were so quiet she hoped he hadn’t heard. But she knew from the way he tensed (she could  _ feel _ the muscles now, just as she’d imagined) that he did.

“What?”

The rest of it came out in a river of words - all the things she’d wanted to say.   
“I don’t deserve you, or this room, or any of these people’s praise - I’m some Dalish elf with no idea how half the world works and no idea how to fix any of this and I’m just shooting arrows and flailing my hand and hoping I don’t get everyone killed and I just want it to stop - ”

His hands tightened where they held her, so much it nearly hurt, but that was what she wanted. To disappear into him the way only a lover could - both whole and separate. She wasn't going hot with want between her legs but deep in her chest. Solas took a breath, then, and spoke.

“The only thing you don’t deserve is the fear you feel, the pressure - the danger. I meant it when I said you were a rare spirit, one I have only seen in my deepest journeys in the Fade. Vhenan, you deserve more than this room, than praise, than this Inquisition - than me.”

How could that be? How could she - ignorant, impulsive, constantly struggling - not deserve him? His grip relaxed a little and she could look up at him now. His face was less guarded than usual. In its place was loneliness. She traced his jaw with her fingertips like she could find the source of it and stamp it out - and he leaned into the touch just a little and she knew what they both needed.

It took the barest pressure from her to pull him down for a kiss, but once his mouth was on hers she found she couldn’t be gentle. Her teeth scraped his lip and his hands on her back were pressed so hard they hurt. There would never be enough of this, she knew. He would pull away soon. She had to take what she could now. And, sure enough -

“You need to sleep. Let me get you a glass of water - better, a glass of wine - ”

No.

There was hurt and fear and loneliness in his eyes and she would be damned if she let it stay there. She couldn’t banish her own feelings. She could banish his.

“The only thing I want is you,” she said.

“I should not - ”

His skin where she could feel it was hot to the touch and he was tense, so tense, always so tense. So her hand slid down between them and she found him exactly as she’d wanted - warm and hard and wonderfully thick, and the little choked gasp he made at her touch flooded her with her own heat. She kissed his cheeks, his chin, his neck, kept stroking him through the thin fabric.

“You are the only person that makes me feel like myself. The only person who makes me feel like I’m safe, like I can do this,” she said. “Make me feel that.”

Safety wasn’t a feeling Ellana usually associated with sex. With Mahanon, when she was sixteen and newly bonded, it was all about the rush, the excitement, the fumbling as sweet as the successes. Every time except for the night they buried ten members of their clan, felled by the same disease that took her parents. She thought of that night then, as Solas gently laid her back and helped her out of her shirt. She didn’t care at all then that she was naked before him, just as she hadn’t cared that night when Mahanon helped her out of her clothes - not until she saw Solas’s shaking hands. For an instant she thought this had gone too far, that he wasn’t ready - but then he ran his hands over her, traced seemingly random parts of her body, like every bit of it was desirable. She couldn’t help but gasp, couldn’t help that already she felt herself growing wet at the thought of what would come now - the connection, the release, the perfect empty darkness where there was no loss, no fear. Nothing but them.

He didn’t look her in the eye, just as Mahanon hadn’t. Before she could speak around the hard lump in her throat Solas was tracing the lips of her sex, so delicately it made her tremble. He did it over and over, his eyes trained on the motion, but that wasn’t what she needed or wanted. She wouldn’t disappear into him like this. Then he pressed against the ache at the apex of her thighs and even though it sent pleasure straight through her it still wasn’t enough. He wouldn’t know that, though. She had to tell him.

“I want  _ you _ ,” she said, as she had that night to Mahanon. Her bondmate had obliged her then, pushed himself into her and rode her until they were both biting each other’s shoulders, held her tight and close and safe, safe, safe.

That was not Solas’s response when she removed his shirt and reached for the hem of his pants. He pressed his fingers harder against her center.

“Patience,” he said.

This was not safety through forgetting. This was not replacing one pain with another. This was him drawing her back gently to somewhere kinder. This was slow waves of pleasure that built and then receded. This was not drifting away from her body but being fully in it, aware of the way the tension built and built, the way her skin prickled, the way she swelled up under his touch. She got a little impatient then, so ready to fall over the edge at last, he was starting to take too long and she worried the edge would recede from her forever. She didn’t have  _ him _ yet - he’d barely made a sound - and she wanted that, wanted to know that these months of  _ maybe _ and waiting were at an end, that she was finally not alone.

That was when he shifted suddenly and slid a finger inside her and she came around it, a soft little shock of pleasure and then a bigger one when he kept rubbing, just a little too hard but she would tell him that another time, because there would be another time. She would get through this with him at her side.

But then he leaned away from her, sitting at the edge of the bed. He reached out to touch her face.

“Rest, vhenan. You need it.”

No. It did not end here.

She sat up and took hold of his hand. “I need you.”

There was a flicker of hesitation in his eyes, so when she kissed him she started small. Then he groaned, the first sound he’d made in all this time, and she knew she had him. So she helped him out of his pants and rolled him onto his back, looking for any sign of resistance, but there was none. Instead there was the beginnings of surrender. He was all muscle, taut chest and stomach and thighs, sharp lines that she ran her fingers along now. He was freckled on his shoulders too, she saw now, and it broke her heart, somehow. Even his cock was straining, bowed back towards his belly, flushed red and dripping, the little cowl of flesh already drawn back, and here, too, there was a freckle, a little below the flared head. She had to brush a thumb along it as she angled him and took him in, slow as she could. Stretching, straining, and then they were locked together, and it happened - all that tightness in his body went away for a moment, and he just looked at her. Her. Ellana Lavellan. Not the Inquisitor or the Herald. Just her.

She rose and sank but couldn't bring herself to move too much, not just because every inch of him felt so good along her walls but because she couldn't bear the thought of ever again not feeling like this. Him and her and the wet heat between them and her singing heart and nothing else. She was almost lost in it (why was her skin tingling so much though - was that magic?) when he rose up suddenly, pushed her back so she was lying down, and she was so empty it ached until he filled her again, drove into her hard again and again and she just held him and felt the wave building inside her at every stroke of him until he made a choked sound and then he was gone.

Well, not gone. But he’d pulled away from her, pulled out of her, angled his hips away - oh. He was coming. On the one hand, it was breathtaking. His pale handsome face flushed, his stomach jumping, and his hard length jerking and pulsing as he spilled. He was leaning his forehead against hers. But his eyes were shut tight. Why had he pulled away? No previous lover had. Any child born to her clan would have been a blessing. Of course that was it. This wasn't the time or place.

“Ir abelas,” he said then.

“You’re sorry?” she said. She almost wasn't surprised that he said it. It was a Solas thing to say after sex. The thought wrung a short laugh from her. “Solas - open your eyes.”

He did, and for a moment the pain in them was blinding. Then he leaned back and his gaze swept over her, and it softened. He softened, her beautiful lover. He really was beautiful like this. And he really was hers. She couldn't resist running a thumb over his lips, imagining the nights that would come.

“I have been waiting for that for months,” she said. “The only thing you should say sorry for is that it took you so long.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck. That would not be the end of it, of course. She could see the next objection forming.

“I have already told you,” he said. “It would be kinder if - ”

She didn't need objections. She sat up and kissed him, just a small pressure. A little offering. She tried to meet his eyes, but he looked away.

“I love you,” she said. “Stay? At least until I fall back asleep?”

“Very well,” he said. “But if I am gone when you wake do not fear. It would be better if the entire great hall did not see me leaving your chambers in yesterday’s clothes, yes?”

The sheets needed changing, of course. He blushed endearingly at that, then insisted on doing it for her. It was cold, but she relished the feeling of the mountain air on her skin. She could remember her fear, but it was distant now. Manageable. Not so his own.

“Come,” he said, voice rough.

That was fine. She knew his pain ran deep. But this was the first real crack. She would hold it in her palm in time.

He didn't move to hold her at first, but when she draped herself around him she could feel him relax. What could she say now that would help him relax more? Nothing too serious. Nothing that would push him any further than she already had.

“I like the freckles on your shoulders,” she said. “I never noticed them before.”

His hand drifted to her waist. Maybe he wouldn't respond - he didn't need to. Maybe even that small detail was too much. He swallowed before he spoke.

“Ar lath ma, vhenan’ara.”

_ Oh. _

He hadn't said it often since that first time. It still made her squirm with delight. She kissed his neck and breathed in the smell of him, of them. Then she burrowed closer, kissed his neck. What more was there that she could say that would help him now? Perhaps exactly what he’d offered her when he came to her. The knowledge that she was not alone.

“I’m still afraid,” she said.

That was when he put his arms around her and truly held. It was so good to be held.

“So am I,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/)!


	3. Impress Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is another scene that I sort of half-wrote, then chickened out of posting. It belongs in Chapter Five of "The World Turned Upside Down" (["That Would Be Enough"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8455849/chapters/19393246)) and is referenced in Chapter Three of "Body of Knowledge" (["Tongues"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8686498/chapters/19914199)).
> 
> I had fun playing with the idea that sex would feel very different for Solas the first few times, now that the Veil is in place, and I wish I'd been brave enough to actually play it up in TWTUD instead of chickening out of this scene! Since he doesn't really reference it in the original work, I suppose you could say this is slightly AU.
> 
> Elvhen in this chapter comes, as always, from FenxShiral.

“Well then,” Ellana said, sliding down onto his lap. “Impress me.”

Her gray eyes were full of light, even though it was dark in the archives. And he wanted so much to impress her. She was asking for so little of him.  _ Just be with me. _ And before last night, it had been so long.

So, so long.

So long since he had a woman in his arms like this, wrapped tight around him, moaning softly into his mouth as he kissed her. And never before a woman like this. Never before a woman who held his heart in her palm, who was his home. For that he could push everything away, couldn't he? For the soft rise of her hips under his hands as he guided her against him in slow, long rocks that made both of them shiver - for the way she laughed low in her throat when he pulled her hard against his length and groaned.

“Gods, I have wanted you like this for weeks,” she said.

“Then I am the more patient of us,” he said, running his nose along the long column of her neck, up to her ear, where he nipped the lobe. She sucked in a breath - good, something to remember. “I’ve wanted you like this for months now.”

She rolled her hips against him, once, twice, kissed him all the while. “I never said how many weeks,” she said when they broke apart. “Now, are we just going to rut like virgins behind an aravel?”

He held her as he stood and knocked away the remains of their meal, and then laid her back on the table, put a hand on her chest when she tried to sit up.

“Is that what you expect of a lover? No wonder last night impressed you.” The buttons were easily sliding free of her vest, exposing that lovely brown skin, and his cock throbbed against its confinement at the sight of it, the memory of the night before. He ran his hands along her stomach just for the luxury of the way it felt under his fingers: muscled and hot and twitching under his touch. “You deserve so much more than someone blindly seeking their own pleasure. You deserve to be left boneless, sated, so utterly undone you think you’ll never recover. You deserve -”

_ More than I can give. _

Not now. Those thoughts had no place here. She just deserved this. His lips on her collarbone, on her nipple, on her hip as he peeled away the trousers and smalls, on her soft pink sex (gentle, sucking kisses, so long since he had that taste on his tongue, salty and intimate and perfect). How had he failed to taste her the night before? How had he ever resisted the thought of her like this, spread out and trembling?

“Solas, you -  _ oh. _ ” 

Her voice cracked when he laved his tongue along that sweet pearl at the peak of her folds. He tried circling her first, then designs just with the very tip of his tongue. Like the night before, it was all so much more - real. Sharp. No blurring of magic around the edges. The floor was hard and cold against his knees. He could feel his magic just under his skin but he knew he’d have to work to draw on it in any significant way. He’d managed a little heat in his fingers the night before, a little flash of mana along her skin, but he didn't think he could do any of his more complicated tricks. It wasn't like before, when it was simply another part of him, like the finger he slid inside her (he shouldn't have already been so hard, remembering that tight wet sheath around him). Just as he’d rediscovered any other spell on waking, he would have to practice with this. As he called on the gentle electric current he’d used in long trysts on sumptuous beds, he hesitated, stilled, broke the rhythm he’d been building. He felt her start to go slack, to shift uncomfortably.

“Solas,” she called, quiet. “It’s fine -”

It wasn't, though. She deserved more. She deserved every climax he’d wrung out of partners whose names he couldn't recall in a world he’d torn apart. But he followed the tug of her hand so he was standing again.

“Clothes off,” she said. “And then touch me like last night.”

So his clothes came off and she guided his fingers to the pressure she liked, the wide gentle circles that slowly grew tighter, until there was nothing else but her the sounds she made and the increasing tension in her body and the pulse between his own thighs. It was like being an adolescent again - unable to think around how much he just wanted pressure and warmth and friction wrapped around his shaft, unable to call on a swift burst of ice to cool his own ardor without losing the rhythm he was building for her (or hurting himself). She was close - soon he could drive into her and assuage that ache.

“Wait -” She said, and reached between them and took hold of his cock and pressed the plump head against her swollen bud, moved it in slow, firm circles. “Oh -  _ oh _ . You -”

Fenhedis, he could see himself get harder, couldn’t remember a time when a woman’s touch felt so vivid, so good it had to be impossible.

“Vhenan -” Was that his voice, so needy? “You will undo me.”

“And?” she canted her hips towards him, increasing the pressure. “You feel so good. So good - is it still good for you?”

He was frozen. Mesmerized by the sight of them, touching but not joined, both of them already covered in each other's slick. Her, unrestrained in the way she took her pleasure of him. No artifice, no performance. She expected no enchantments, no intricate spells. Just him.

“Let me make you sing,” he said, and he pulled away from her hand only so he could plunge into her, drive down deep until he felt nothing but her, her, her.

“Fuck,” she rasped. “Fuck, love, you’re so hard -”

It was better than ancient poetry. Better than mana twining with his own. He was throbbing inside her, balls heavy and tight with need, to heavy, too tight. He took a deep breath, pulled out, pressed on her bud with his fingertips, grasped his base with the other hand, pressed hard. Not yet.

“What are you doing? I need you.  Garas, aman na'mis , vhenan.”

He pushed back into her and her warmth sucked him down. She was both. Real, so real, so much part of this world, and yet still connected to the world he left behind, fragments of Elvhen tumbling from her lips alongside more curses.

“Yes - you, you, you, sa’lath, you -”

He thrusted and thrusted and rubbed her in time and her back arched up and she clenched around him and it was just supposed to be the first time she came, he was going to bring her over again, then he was going to pull out and finish in his own hand - but he felt the sweet clenching inside himself too, too late to stop, his breath hitched and he was already coming inside her, her, his love his home -

The embarrassment only set in afterwards, of course. He felt his face flush hot when he looked down, saw himself already softening inside her. He hadn’t even warned her. It was rude, selfish, presumptuous -

“I -”

“You’d better not be about to apologize again. I’m too limp to argue. Is it a habit of yours?” It was true. She was spread wide on the table, totally boneless.

“Nothing about this is - habit.” Any lover in Arlathan would be laughing at him right now, throwing him out of their bed.

“Too bad. I could make a habit of this. You - how was it you put it? - coming undone in me. I do have a contraceptive brew I can start taking again, you know. If - if this could become a habit.”

He ran his thumb along one of the branches of her vallaslin where it crossed her cheek, down to the corner of her lip. Something so hateful, and yet, on her - almost beautiful.

“I would take you again now, if you would have me. And tomorrow, and the night after. But it will never be just a habit. Ar lath ma.”

He could see the words bloom in her eyes.

“Good. We’re going to the Western Approach soon. It's going to be hot and sandy and terrible - but you would make it worthwhile.”

Thoughts formed about all the things she was worth, but he held them at bay. They were a light made brighter by the darkness that surrounded them - the darkness she could not share. Instead he leaned down over her and kissed her, rested his weight lightly against her and then more fully when she made a pleased noise and pulled down on his neck. He rained kisses along her shoulder and her arm and her marked hand and there was time for a hundred more kisses after that instead of words. Then they cleaned up, and held hands all the way to the main hall, where they parted carefully before the door opened. Perhaps it was not as impressive as days of skillful, carefully choreographed ecstasy - but it was all more than enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/)!


	4. Magic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has explicit sexual content!
> 
> Here's a drabble that has been kicking around in my head pretty much since I wrote the last chapter. It just fleshes out some very small head canons about how Solas's approach to sex would have been shaped by living in a world with abundant magic, and how it would be one more little adjustment as he embarked on his relationship with Ellana.

“What was that?”

The words pulled Solas immediately out of the joy he’d lost himself in - Ellana’s flushed skin pressed hard against him as they lay on their sides on his bed, her labored breaths, her wet, tender folds under his fingertips, the tingling current of magic he was summoning to push her over the edge - she’d gone still.

“That - that feeling,” she said. Her fingers danced over his side, still shaking a little. She’d been close. He kissed her jaw.

“I would hope a good one,” he said, replaying what happened. They’d stolen to his room after heated kisses under the scaffolding in the rotunda - he’d dropped his voice low and promised he’d make it hard for her to sit on her horse when they left for the Western Approach the next day - and he’d been doing just that, playing with pressure and pattern and speed as his fingertips pressed and rolled and slid -

“You did something different, though,” she said. “It was all - tingly.”

Oh.

“It was magic, vhenan. I thought it might please you.”

“You can use magic that way?” she asked.

Solas found himself trapped. He had not considered this. In the days since their last tryst he’d practiced the spells, familiarized himself with how to call on them at the right intensity, noted how much of his energy and attention it drained - he had never once thought if this was something she might like. Was this even a form of magic that survived the formation of the Veil? Short-sighted, arrogant fool. He should have asked her.

“I’ve never been with a mage,” she said, rescuing him, as she often did, from saying too much. Her hand slid lower now, grasped his arse and pulled him close, and he was belatedly aware of his cock again, softened a little in his distraction, swelling now.

“No? There are - benefits.” He directed raw mana towards her - but it found nothing to connect with, no answering outstretched hand, no dizzying collide of energy. The Anchor was there, but it was not something he wanted to provoke. A twinge of sadness dulled the growing arousal. She’d never been with a mage - he’d never been with someone who wasn't one. But she shivered in response and canted her hips.

“I felt that the first night we lay together. I wasn't sure what happened - is that your magic?”

“Yes. Do you want me to try what I was doing earlier again? I should have asked you in the first place if you wanted magic in your bed, I suppose. My apologies.”

“Two things,” she said, and in a sudden roll of muscle that was her own form of magic, he was on his back. “One - this is your bed. And two - I’ve already said what I want in my bed - you. All of you.”

She took hold of his cock, swirled her finger over his weeping head, rubbed it back and forth against those soft inner lips between her thighs, and when she slid slowly down over his length, when he parted her inch by perfect inch, he forgot to think of anything but her.

And that was the real magic of it. The tense and release of her sex, the way she rolled like a wave over him, the way she made everything new - this, the feeling of being surrounded with tight heat over and over as she rose until his cock slid out and then slid back in as slowly as the first time - the feeling of guiding her to a pace that made him groan and grow harder and then letting go and watching her work, of having a breast cupped in each hand - all of this could feel like it was the first time again. Like this world was a beginning. Like he was himself, Solas, and not Fen’Harel. Like he was new.

“Emma lath,” she crooned. “Ma sa’lath - ar lath ma.”

And it was the most natural thing in the world, then, to reach out and press his thumb to the sweet place at the top of her folds and direct his magic against it in wave after wave of heat and force and current until she couldn't say anything anymore, until he couldn't think of any world but her and the place where they were joined.

“Well… shit,” she said when she stopped shaking, though deep inside she still clenched around him.

He groaned in reply - he was still twitching inside her. Had he truly ever felt so spent before, no matter how many times he’d used that word? She ran her nails gently down his chest and it made him shiver and twitch again.

“I wish I could return the favor,” she said.

 _I wish I had met you in a world where you could have_.

Solas caught her by the wrist and kissed her marked palm.

“You are a wonder all on your own,” he said.

She smiled and then leaned down so they were chest to chest once more, and kissed him until their bodies were cool and the spell was broken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/)!


	5. Intimacies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/post/166124929281/intimacies).
> 
> This is explicit. In it, Ellana and Solas steal away from the others on their journey to the Western Approach, Ellana gets to go down on Solas for the first time, and Solas wants desperately to be one of the things she makes new.

Solas woke one morning near the shores of Lake Celestine to the quiet call of Ellana’s voice outside the tent he shared with Blackwall. He threw on the linen shirt he’d discarded at some point in the night, and found her waiting outside his tent similarly attired: soft breeches, a loose shirt, and bare brown feet.

“What is it?” He asked. She held out a small, bone-handled razor.

“Would you help me shave my head?”

They’d been lovers for barely a month, but Solas was already keeping careful count of the intimacies they’d shared, hoarding them in the hollow spaces underneath his ribs like any man who’d known starvation and would know it again. This was one of those intimacies - the hush of the wind through the trees. The way she brushed the back of her hand against his as they walked until he took it. Gently directing her to sit on a large rock on the shore of the lake with a hand on her shoulder, and then slowly dragging his fingertips along the soft fuzz that was growing along the sides of her head and her neck.

“Do you want it all the way to the scalp?” He asked.

“Yes. Water will be precious in the Approach. I’ll probably end up letting it grow out a little while we’re there. I just don’t want it to be a nuisance.”

It wasn’t all she wanted, though. He’d seen her shave alone often enough in the months since she fell out of the Breach. In fact, she did nearly everything herself, if others let her get away with it - she was efficient and practical to a fault. So this - standing by the banks of a stream in the dim morning light, rubbing the soap into her skin, drawing two fingers down the column of her spine to watch her shiver, the soft rasp of the razor against her scalp, the gentle droop of her shoulders, that absolute trust - this meant something.

“Ready to leave?” he asked as he worked. He was measured, careful, precise in his strokes.

“Not really. After here we leave all the green places behind.”

“All the green places. I like that turn of phrase.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

He bent to rinse the razor in the water and caught sight of her. She was looking at him with pursed lips.

“What?”

“I just don’t think anyone has complimented me on something I’ve said before. I don’t exactly have - what was the phrase Josephine used?”

“A silver tongue.”

“Yes. That.”

He returned to his work, guiding her head to one side and then to the other, inspecting the evenness of the line he’d made.

“You charmed them well enough in Orlais.”

“I was rude to everyone.”

“Yes, but in ways that they found clever. That is how such games are played.”

“Then they’re silly games. I hope I never have to go back to that place.”

“I fear you may have little choice.”

She frowned. He could see the tension gathering along her shoulders, and smoothed his hands along them. The gesture pushed her shirt down enough that he could see her collarbone.

“We should go back.”

He wet the towel they’d brought along and washed the soap and shorn hairs away, and when she rose from the rock they were standing so close that he could see the streaks in her gray eyes, the stray hairs that had fallen on her neck despite his care. Of course when he brushed them away he had to lean down and kiss her. Just briefly, now, while they were away from the others. Another little intimacy to tuck away for the inevitable. It was an unthinkable luxury, the noise she made, how her hand got tight on his shirt, the sensation of her blunt fingernails digging just a little into the skin beneath, the way she stayed close even after their lips parted.

“We should go back,” he said again.

“Or,” she offered.

Or.

 _Or_  led them to the shade of the nearby trees, the camp just close enough to make out the scent of the morning fire - so someone else was up - to throwing the shaving supplies aside, to her hands sliding under his shirt to rake slowly down his stomach, to his hands loosening the ties on her breeches enough to cup her ass beneath them and pull her tight against his thigh so she could grind there and he could swallow up her sounds. He wanted to hold her there until she came apart, and then press her down into the rich dark earth and push inside of her - but he could hear the rumble of Blackwall’s voice, and the Seeker’s replying -

“I fear there is not time for this,” he said, drawing back.

“There’s time for other things,” she countered, as she so often did. She was good at that. “I haven’t had the chance to use my mouth on you yet, for example.” Her voice was low and warm and vibrated along his ear. “You keep - intercepting me.”

Her annoyed tone made him smile.

“Perhaps I am not the sort of man who enjoys such things. Perhaps I’d rather focus on my partner, and not on myself.”

He might have been able to play it off from there - but she was sly, and she could move with no one noticing, and her hand was already on him, grasping, and he was already so hard.

She took the lobe of his ear between her teeth. She let it go, and then she said it with warmth and humor and love and all the things that made his chest tight, the one word that was the absolute truth: “Liar.”

He inhaled sharply. His mind spun. Every memory and sensation he’d gathered in the last month crowded upwards through his throat. He did not deserve to hold onto these bright things. He had to speak. He said the only thing he could.

“Yes.”

She smiled, because she did not know how deep her words had cut.

But he felt - light now. Not like he was choking. It was dizzying. She’d named him. Called him the thing he really was. She called him liar and he’d told the truth in return. He walked two worlds as he always had. He was hard in her hand and he wanted her to move, to finish that claiming. He closed his eyes.

“Good,” she said at last, making the first long stroke. Up and down. His stomach flipped and his cock tightened and then released. “I’ll admit I haven’t done it in a while, but I’ve been looking forward to getting back into practice now.”

She touched him, gentle and sure, until his breath was getting quick. She kissed him until he tilted his head back against the tree and closed his eyes.

Then she finished untying his trousers and pulling them down. Her mouth was on him and the heat of it stole his breath, drawing a gutted sound from deep inside his chest. She was gentle in her exploration - slow. Lips working at him, and then tongue, sliding, tasting. She moaned quietly and he felt it rather than heard it and his cock twitched again. When he looked down he saw her pale eyes looking back at him with tenderness that bowed his body, made him reach down to her and run his fingers through the tiny dense curls on the top of her head, the only part he’d left untouched that morning. This could not be real. This care.

“You can show me what you want,” she said, pulling away. “I won’t mind.”

He traced the shape of her swollen lips, and ran his thumb down the black line of June’s vallaslin where it marred them.

“You are more than enough.”

She leaned her chin against his hip and smiled, and her hands ran up and down his thighs, rough with the work they did every day, making things new. It did not matter if it was the northern star or an old song or just the sound of her rustling in the sheets at his side or the way she cradled and then rolled his balls in her hand - she made everything new.

“Still good?” she asked.

“If you think I am.”

She shook her head in disbelief. “Of course. But I meant - you want this, don’t you?”

He cupped her cheek and his heart ached. “Yes.”

He didn’t only mean that he wanted her to nuzzle against his thighs again, to leave kisses along one hip and up to his belly button and then down to the other hip, avoiding his shaft all the while. He didn’t only mean that he wanted her to at last take him back into her mouth. He meant holding her hand while walking down some dusty road, shaving her head in the mornings, wrapping a cloak around her when she was cold - and then she swallowed him down, and he stopped thinking of things he couldn’t have.

“Vhenan,” he said quietly, and then repeatedly -  _vhenan, vhenan, vhenan_  - because she was so good, her mouth so warm, her hands encouraging him to rock his hips to help her find the rhythm she could bob to, pressure already building deep at the base of his cock as he thrust into her mouth, why was it always so quick with her? Because she made things new again. It was like the first time. But when his own rhythm eased so did hers, and she went long and slow, dragging him in and out, tongue flickering over and around his head until he panted, pulsed, nearly spilled himself, so ready to simply let go, to be in her care.

“Sorry,” she said at once, pulling off of him. “My jaw. Just a moment.”

“It’s -”

He didn’t get to finish the thought. She was working him with her hand now, hard, and it made a quiet wet sound that made his cock pulse again and a grunt escape his lips. It was her eyes that transfixed him. The hunger in them. The joy. She loved this. Loved him.

“Vhenan,” he managed, one last time, before his cock went rigid and his breath rushed out of him with a choked  _ah, ah, ah_  and her mouth went tight around him one last time just as he spent himself, over and over, a headlong rush, every tug of her hand drawing up more.

He didn’t know at what point he closed his eyes and surrendered. Only that when he opened them, she was still looking up at him, wiping her mouth, and then smiling.

_Liar._

“Good?” she asked. She tucked his softening length away.

“Yes.”

He found one of her hands and helped her stand, and then pulled her close and leaned against the tree so her weight fell against him, and he held her, one hand cradling the back of her neck. She hummed, and then laughed, and then murmured against his neck:

“I just found out my new favorite thing about you.”

“Oh?”

“You have a freckle. Right down - here.” She snaked her hand back into the open front of his breeches and ran a finger along his still sensitive length. He sucked in his breath. She withdrew her hand.

“So I do. It has been some time since someone noticed it.”

“Well, it’s my secret now.”

“It is a secret I happily share.” The front of her own breeches was still open. He reached down and traced a finger along the cleft her smalls obscured. “Ma lath - I would offer you release, too.”

She shook her head. “This was enough. More than enough. We should go back.”

They set their clothing right and began to head back. They did not hold hands as they walked this time. They were heading back towards expectation and duty. Solas did not feel as heavy as he usually did at the thought. He watched her all that morning, scolding Blackwall for his lack of clean socks, planning their route, scanning the lists of requisitions once more, taking care to erase signs of their camp. He felt lighter and lighter. Perhaps he was one of the things she could make new.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Solas. Only you can be angsty while getting a blow job :) :)
> 
> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/)! I am posting several other one-shots that originally appeared on my Tumblr here today. Most of them follow directly after this one.


	6. Unsaid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This originally appeared [here on Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/post/165880819191/unsaid).
> 
> This chapter is explicit. In it, Solas awakens Ellana with a sudden need that takes her by surprise, and leaves her with more questions than answers (aka some good old fashioned morning smut).

Ellana woke to feather-light touches on her side, and warmth against her back, and lips on the nape of her neck. She took a deep breath but didn’t open her eyes, and then the feather-light touches turned into a palm, smoothing down her side and then curving down to her stomach where the hand splayed open and pressed her back, making sure the full line of their bodies touched - and then she heard Solas draw in a soft breath, because now she was pressed against something hard and silky and hot.

Her whole body was still deliciously heavy with sleep, so she remained still, and let Solas trail his lips along her neck, and then to her ear, where he let out a quiet sigh of pleasure as he rocked his hard length against her once, twice. Ellana stretched at last, arching her back just so that she pressed against him, making him grunt softly again and rub into her.

“On dhea,” she murmured, eyes still shut, when she stopped the stretch and they were touching once more.

“Is it?” he said, continuing to kiss her ear, drawing the firm ridge between his lips until she shuddered, biting along it until a gasp escaped her. Then his open palm slid further down, two fingers seeking her plump folds and finding them. Her world narrowed to that touch, heat rushing to where his fingers crooked, pressing and rubbing the length of her lips and then finally dipping between them, just enough that her breath hitched.

“Ah,” he said. “So it is.”

He withdrew only to guide her smalls down and then to open her legs to him, putting one leg back and over his own. Then his hand returned, cupping her mound. Ellana opened her eyes just to look down the length of their bodies and see that pale, strong hand and its scarred knuckles between her brown thighs, and shivered. The way he covered her, the way his broad body surrounded her, the way he was here in the morning sunlight at her side -

“Rut,” he said, voice low in her ear. He rocked against her again, setting the rhythm. “I want to feel you.”

Drowsy, hot, and now aching, Ellana didn’t need to be told twice. His hand was so tight around her that each gentle motion of her hips put pressure on the pearl still hidden behind her folds, and it wasn’t long before she could feel it swelling, until she was rocking harder against his hand, little ragged sighs escaping her at the just-enough, not-enough of it, at the feeling of two his fingers resting against her slit, not moving.

“So wet,” he said, and the fingers pressed, not enough to enter her but enough that they parted the flesh, that she could feel her cunt ache for more. When his hand withdrew she whined, still too drowsy to form words. “Hush - let me - ” He’d shifted and now his cock was sliding between her thighs, hot and hard and heavy with want. He made a guttural sound as he flexed his hips, readjusting once more so that it pressed right against her slit, still not trying to enter - just feeling. He moved her leg off of his hip. She was tight around him now. His hand was pressed hard against her.

“There,” he whispered, voice shaky, more to himself than to her. “Oh, you’re right there -”

It was the tone of his voice that made some distant part of her mind that wasn’t wrapped up in tangled sheets and the morning smell of them and the feeling of skin on skin question why, exactly, this was happening. Why Solas, so quick to pull away, was reaching out with such insistence.

But he began to thrust, smooth, slow strokes, so she could feel every drag of his skin over his swollen flesh, so she could feel her own slick beginning to coat him as he rubbed himself against her. Her sex throbbed and twitched at the sounds he made, so - broken? Grateful?

“Ma’lath,” he whispered, hand sliding back down her stomach. “Haurasha.” His fingers found her bud and began to play with it, first rubbing up and down and then circling, and then parting her folds and sliding back its little hood and rolling it.

“Fuck,” she groaned. Every other thought was gone. There was just her cunt was already twitching, pressure building deep in her. “Please -”

“Yes,” he said, and now the fingers were rubbing faster, tighter circles. “I want -” He made a sound she could not name, pleasure but also pain. He was still rutting, faster now, fingers circling, circling. “I want to spill myself between your thighs. I want -”

She was keening, so close, so tight so wet so so so so - but he was the one who gave a ragged sigh and said: “ _Please_.”

She swelled up and he rubbed and she was coming, gasping, her whole body contracting with the force of it, fluttering inside, she thought maybe he would press into her but instead he kept rocking, thrusting through her aftershocks. She looked down and felt another surge of pleasure at the sight of his cock, flushed red and dripping, pressing in and out between her legs.

“Oh - you -” he managed.

“Do you want to - ”

She’d started to turn her head, but the hand that was between her legs was on her chin, stopping her.

“No. I only…”

It was unlike him to be at a loss for words - to deny her the sight of his eyes. He hadn’t stopped moving. Another broken sound escaped him and so Ellana dropped her hand between them and took hold of him, wet with her own slick and with his, and he was frantic in his movement now now, undone, his hand fisted in the sheets beside her face as he gasped and then came, body bowing, teeth buried in her shoulder, groaning as she hadn’t heard him before, his cock twitching hard as his spend filled her palm - and then escaped there, splashing hot onto her belly.

“Ma’lath,” she crooned, rubbing him through the last hard pulses. “That’s it. I love feeling you like this.”

He relaxed at last when she spoke, like another wave had passed through his body, taking with it the last of his tension. He began to catch his breath, but he didn’t make to move away. Ellana blinked open her eyes once more and let out a sigh of her own, feeling her heart still racing. The fog of sex cleared her mind. What brought this on? They had not been intimate for long. She could count the number of encounters between them on both of her hands, still - and she could count the number of times he had initiated on one. He was hardly the first man to wake up hard, but he was the first one she’d known who seemed so desperate for her. So desperate he couldn’t even wait to be inside her. Or was that what happened at all?

She cleared her throat, intending to ask. But she was weak with satisfaction, and he was slowly, gently, kissing her neck, and she didn’t want the moment to end. Didn’t want to scare him back to whatever depths he usually haunted.

Eventually, Ellana slipped out of his embrace long enough to fumble for a cloth to wipe away their mess. Solas peppered kisses along her shoulder as she cleaned them.

“Thank you,” he said softly, when they both lay slack against each other once more.

“Whatever for?” Ellana asked.

He went back to tracing soft, random patterns on her side.

“I woke - wanting,” he said. “And you simply…”

Now she could not help but laugh, a full-throated sound that echoed in the chamber.

“What?” Ellana laughed. “Gave you what you wanted? In case you missed it, I quite enjoyed that. There are far worse ways to wake up.”

“I am not -” Solas sighed. Then at last he shifted away, and stood.

Shit.

“Wait,” she said, but he was already gathering his clothes where he’d neatly folded them the night before. He sat back on the bed and began wrapping his feet, his back to her, its spray of freckles barely visible in the morning sun. She untangled herself from the sheets and sat beside him, studying the angles of the face she already knew so well, searching for words that would ease the line between his eyebrows.

“Ma vhenan,” she said at last, when he was nearly done. The words stilled him. She took his hand. “There is no shame in needing someone. Whatever you need of me - you have it.”

He looked not at her, but at their hands. “The way you give -”

But it was another sentence he would not finish. He turned her hand over and kissed her unmarked palm, then stood to continue dressing. Ellana watched him, frowning, ready to protest as she had that night in the Western Approach. But light was streaming in through the windows, and she would be missed soon. So instead she let him kiss her forehead and disappear down the stairs, already warping the light around him to make his appearance less noticeable. She rose, stretched, bathed, and dressed alone, reminding herself of the day’s tasks ahead - and adding a visit to the rotunda, to sit on his couch and watch him work, to smile when he caught sight of her, to reassure him with her silent presence that she was there, waiting, for the day when he would speak all the words he left unsaid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: this was originally written for the epilogue of "Awakened," and included a little coda that flashed forward to the morning of their first anniversary, where Solas behaves similarly out of relief that she is still alive after all. I couldn't make it work, so it sat in my WIP folder forever. I hope you enjoyed the new version!
> 
> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/)!


	7. Unbent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This originally appeared [here on Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/post/166476328916/unbent).
> 
> This is the explicit story that Solas tells in [Chapter Three of Body of Knowledge](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8686498/chapters/19914199) when Ellana asks him what he thought about when he was - uh - alone during his time apart from her. Being the angst monster that he is, he thinks of Adamant, and how making love to her there was the first time he truly considered staying.

Solas felt like he couldn’t breathe when they returned to Adamant Fortress from the Fade.

All the magic was so far away.

The Fade was a nightmare and he  _missed it_  already.

He needed the orb back. He needed to fix all of this.

He needed Ellana.

Ellana who had to find every dreamer in that hell and soothe them, who looked at him with such grief when she read his tombstone, who would have offered herself in Hawke’s place (he saw the offer in her eyes, had wanted to lunge at her and push her through the rift before she could speak it) - Ellana who only ever wanted to help and protect and provide, who turned on Warden-Commander Clarel and in a voice low and seething with rage said  _get out of Orlais_  -

He’d thrilled to see her at the height of her power, her shoulders back, her teeth bared - he’d thrilled to see her meting out justice where it was due - and he’d seen her already crashing down from it as she walked away, as she spoke to Blackwall and then to Cullen - the horror of it all written plainly on her face -

He needed to raze the world she lived in, and he needed to feel her lips against his ear, his throat, the sharp sting of her teeth in his shoulder.

He tried to sleep. He tried, briefly, to take himself in hand and banish the need that way (because she shouldn’t be responsible for him like this - twisted up and hurting).

He ended up outside her door, still half-hard.

She’d come to him like this once before, wild with the kind of lust that only came after a hard battle, the last time they were in the Western Approach. They’d barely gotten undressed, then, taking each other with blind haste. He thought that was what would happen when she opened the door. She had not been asleep either; she was still mostly in her armor. Her feet and hands were bare, and when she saw who it was, she took him by the hand and pulled him inside, closing the door behind him.

Then she melted against him, burying her face in the scratchy tunic he’d thrown on when he left his tent, and Solas felt at once what a fool he was for coming. She didn’t need him as he was now, a riot of anger and confusion. She needed -

“Are you okay?”

She was looking up at him, her hands still fisted in his shirt. He blinked once, hard, trying to clear his thoughts.

“Solas -” Her lips parted and she stood on tiptoe but she did not kiss him. She pressed her cheek to his instead, and held him. A fine tremble ran through her small frame, and she pressed her cheek harder against his. He splayed his hands on her back and pulled her even tighter against his body, and let out a long breath of his own.

The world went still.

But that was the trouble with this world, wasn’t it?

It was too still.

He’d made it too still.

When she backed away from him it was only to take hold of the hem of his shirt and raise her eyebrows. He nodded, and she lifted it up and away and smoothed her hands over his stomach and chest - searching, he knew, for wounds, just as her eyes searched his face again. They shone in the dim light as she continued to undress him. He did not speak while she did so, or while she undressed herself, though he knew he should. He should say  _something_. He should ask her how she was. She was still shaking now and then as she kissed his jaw and pushed him back towards the low bed in the center of the room. He should ask her. But there was only one answer, wasn’t there? This world was misery - the Fade was little better - there was nowhere to turn - and in the end, no matter what happened, he would die alone.

“It’s all right,” she said, pulling him down on top of her, twining her legs with his, kneading his shoulders. “Whatever it is, it’s fine.”

It was not fine, but she kissed him, and he tried to lose himself in that. This one comfort. Another thing he would destroy in the end. He would take it for now. Because there were things in this world that he could still bend - like her. Her lips were rough and chapped against his own but she was tender between her legs, and she curled up to meet him when he slid one finger inside her and stroked, when he thumbed the most swollen part of her. He could still have this - her, breathless, clinging to him, her most intimate places fluttering around him -

“Wait.”

He paused. She’d been close - now she lowered herself to the mattress. She reached up and cupped his face, traced his jaw - and just looked at him. Stared. He tensed. He felt oddly exposed. He was suddenly aware of several things - the hollow of her throat and the sweat there. The grime in her unwashed red hair. The strain in his wrist where his hand was frozen, still inside her. The liquid warmth surrounding his fingers. The ripple of the flesh that clung to him. The fuzz of her mound against his thumb. Sounds, smells, the dull pulse of his tired mana, the deep bruise on his side that he had not healed all the way.

The real, unbending world.

“Come here,” she said, and he withdrew his fingers from inside her and settled on top of her and they kissed, parted, and then remained, breathing the same air.

Ellana reached between them to line him up against her, and he’d softened in that brief, overwhelming pause, so she stroked him until he let out a shaky breath.

“That’s it,” she said quietly. Her voice was full of tenderness and wonder and other things he didn’t deserve.

This - this simplest thing, him hardening at her touch - this was enough for her.

There was no sliding in. She was still tight, and there was shifting, a brief swear when skin pinched, and then spit in his palm and smoothed along his length. He touched himself like that, watching her watch him, wrapped up in this simple miracle that he, alone, in this chaos - his body - this was enough for her. Her gasp when he did push in, the broad head of his cock taking some time, some maneuvering - the stillness after when they adjusted - this was enough.

He looked down at her, and felt her breathe, and it was enough.

He was not alone.

“Good?” she asked.

He nodded.

He ground against her slowly.

“Good?” he asked.

She sighed again, and closed her eyes, and he let himself love her.

It didn’t take him long until he was panting, so hard he could barely stand it, until he was moving within her because he had to, because he needed to feel how soft and warm and real she was. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, rose up to meet each stroke with a cry, and there was pressure, pressure, pressure deep inside him, he needed to come, in her, with her -

She dropped her hands to his ass suddenly and guided him harder, faster. She murmured endearments in his ear. His mind filled with the words of love she offered and the wet slap of their bodies and all he knew was need. He buried himself when his climax hit. His fists were tight on the thin sheets beside them, and she held him through every throbbing wave as he poured pulse after pulse into her, her own breathing rapid and strained.

They lay joined until the sounds of the men and women dying in the field hospital nearby drifted back in. Then he slipped out of their hot slick and put his head on her chest and listened to the beating of her heart. He was so very tired, and though he knew he should go back to his own quarters before he was missed, or before someone came looking for her, he didn’t care about the thought of anyone walking in on them now. He was loved.

Ellana ran a hand up and down his neck, and he nosed at the gentle curve of one of her breasts, planting a kiss on the underside. Her heart hadn’t stopped racing.

“You did all that you could,” he said at last.

“I know,” she said. “And it wasn’t enough.”

He raised his head. “But you are.”

She looked like she wanted to argue - but she didn’t. He hoped she believed him. He hoped she knew she was always enough, even after he left.

Or -

He could stay in the world he had made, and let himself continue to love her.

It was a simple, intoxicating solution. He could lay down his burdens and stay, and he would never be alone again. He’d half-thought it before. But now the thought was round and smooth and heavy like a well-formed stone.

This world did not bend but it was real - and it had moments like this. Ellana, moonlight, the scars new and old that dotted her body, the creak of the hard bed beneath them as they settled down together, her quiet lilting whine that she felt sticky between her legs but she didn’t want to get up and clean herself off. The fact that he knew exactly where the clean cloths were in her pack already, and that she lazily opened her legs so he could do it for her. The fact that her heart still had not stopped racing when he put his hand on her chest, and the fact that all she wanted was for him to gather her close while she tried to make it slow. Neither of them slept well that night. But when he did drift in and out, it was to the echo of one word:  _maybe, maybe, maybe_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/)!


	8. Congratulations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A prompt from [WardsAreFunctioning](http://archiveofourown.org/users/WardsAreFunctioning/pseuds/WardsAreFunctioning) that originally appeared [here on Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/post/165706374591/congratulations-an-au-where-pregnant-ellana).
> 
> "Congratulations" is an off-Broadway "Hamilton" song in which Angelica chews out Hamilton for what he's done to their family by revealing his affair with Maria Reynolds. The ever-lovely Wards pointed out that the lyrics worked *scary* well as something Dorian might say to Solas if Ellana had been more forthcoming about why, exactly, she fled their home while 9 months pregnant. The lyrics work so well that I used some verbatim!
> 
> This is a slight AU of "Body of Knowledge" as a result, partially because Ellana lets a little more of the truth slip in this than she does in the original, and partially because the scene where Solas and Ellana speak again takes place in person and not over the crystal. And, you know, Dorian never lets Solas have it like he does here.

Dorian’s first (incredibly uncharitable) thought when Ellana emerged from the eluvian was that she really was huge. Gone was the slight, muscled Inquisitor he’d known with her close-shaven hair. She was round everywhere now, from her cheeks to the great swell of her nine-months-gone-with-child belly. Her hair was longer than he’d ever seen it, too. It circled her head in a cloud of tight red ringlets that swayed with each step she took towards them. The sight should have made him happy. This was a thing she’d always wanted, and when the initial shock wore off, he thought impending motherhood suited her. She looked lovely, healthy - and furious.

“Hey Boss,” Bull said. “Let me carry that for you.”

He was already taking the bag Ellana had slung over one shoulder from her. One of the soldiers who’d arrived at her side immediately stepped forward with another, handing it to Bull.

_Bags?_

As in - more than one?

Dorian felt his heart sink further than it had when Ellana first called him over the crystal the day before and asked if it was at all possible for he and Bull to get to Enasan sooner than they had planned. She hadn’t given many details, though there was fear and anger in her vocie. She’d only said that Solas was going away for a few days and that she didn’t want to be alone. It had all still been abstract then. He wasn’t too panicked. Now, when she was giving him an embrace that was equal parts awkward and warm because she was  _so very pregnant_ , it hit him all at once.

She’d left home in a rush, when she could have the child any day.

Solas had left her alone, when she could have the child any day.

_What has Solas done?_

“Shall we?” Ellana said, the embrace done. “I hear your inn is nearby. You’ll forgive me for wanting to take a carriage nonetheless.” This with a sheepish glance down at her belly.

“No, I demand you walk all the way, singing Rivaini sea chanties for my amusement.”

“Well, as Magister Pavus commands, so let it be done…”

They talked on the ride to the inn as if nothing was wrong, commenting on the weather and on how well kept the roads in Enasan were. Now and then Ellana ran a soothing hand over her stomach, though he couldn’t help but wonder if it was to comfort herself or the child within. Maker, Ellana was about to be a mother, and she was here with them instead of with Solas, and she had that far-off look he’d hoped never to see in her eyes again after that day in Kirkwall when Solas held her hand in a garden and told her he wanted to spend the rest of his days at her side.

“Stop it,” Ellana said at last, when they arrived safely at the inn.

“Stop what?”

“Looking at me like I’m a grenade about to go off. We’re fine.” Again, that soothing gesture, up and down the great curve of her midsection.  _We’re fine._ Now that she said it, he was in fact concerned by the possibility that she might start grabbing at her stomach in pain instead. He’d signed up for this trip to celebrate his birthday and cuddle an already-born niece or nephew, thank you very much. Not to be the one holding her hand while she writhed in agony.

_So where is Solas? And what has he done?_

“Now that you mention it - how long do you have, exactly?” he said instead.

“I don’t think that’s the kind of question anyone can answer,” Bull interjected, giving Ellana a slow, appraising look. “But if I had to look at you, I’d say the kid hasn’t dropped down far enough for you to be a concern yet.”

Both he and Ellana fixed Bull with bewildered stares at that.

“What?” Bull said. “We did a job once. Antivan lady married to an Orlesian noble, carrying her lover’s bastard. She wanted safe passage back home and we took the contract. Figured it would be a good idea for us to know what to do with a woman in labor, so I did some reading. If the baby isn’t settling low down in her stomach yet, we’ve got some time.”

“Bull,” Ellana sputtered. “Are you telling me that if I do go into labor, you’ll be able to deliver my child?”

“Well, yeah, if Dorian manages to get me some clean water, elfroot, a stick, and some towels before he faints.”

Dorian rolled his eyes, though his chest warmed at the affectionate tone. They never did get enough time together, just the two of them. How he missed Bull’s teasing when they were apart.

“I take offense to that remark, amatus.”

Ellana laughed. “Well, that does make me feel a little bit better about leaving my midwife behind.”

“Don’t put all your hopes on me,” Bull said, raising his hands in mock defense. “Solas is a big guy for an elf. I’d be a little concerned that you’ve got some big ancient elf baby there. Not sure I know what to do about that.”

“You and me both,” Ellana said with a sad half-smile. Dorian felt his heart sink once again. The faraway look was coming back. He had to know.

“Ellana,” he said finally. “What happened?”

She thought about it for a minute, opening and closing her mouth. When she spoke, her voice was quiet.

“Everything is fine. Solas just - I just needed some time. We both did.”

He and Bull exchanged a glance. Dorian didn’t like the sound of those words. They brought up too many memories that made his skin prickle. Ellana returning bare-faced from Crestwood. _He just - left me. I don’t know why._   _I thought he loved me._  Ellana lying in that bed in the Winter Palace, sick and hollow with grief and asking why he hadn’t just left her to die - and then turning around a few days later to say:  _I don’t know why he would do any of this. I want him to come back. He’s worth saving. I’m not giving up on him._  And then, again, in the months that followed, her voice heavy and sad.  _We keep trying. We have to keep trying._  This was all supposed to be over. He was supposed to be here to celebrate the good things in her life - not to pick up the pieces Solas had scattered once more. And how had he scattered them? Why was she so reluctant to tell him?

A thought occurred to Dorian that made him feel ill.

“Ellana,” he said again. “Did he - ? Has he - hurt you?”

“What? No!” There it was, the fury he knew, the subdued angle of her head exchanged for a challenging, head-on stare. “He would never.”

“I don’t mean that he hit you, necessarily. He doesn’t seem the type. But - my friend, there is more than one way for someone to hurt you.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“And yet you’re here, with us,” Bull said, his voice coaxing, nonjudgmental.  Not for that last time, Dorian was happy that his partner knew all the finer arts of getting someone to open up. “You didn’t exactly sound fine over the crystal. Where did he have to go at a time like this, anyway?”

“There’s been trouble,” Ellana said at last. “Out west. A province called Oruvun. There are Elvhen who feel betrayed by Solas’s decision not to dissolve the Veil.”

“Oh,” Dorian said, calming a little. “And Solas went to stop them, I take it? That’s a good thing.”

But Ellana wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“Yes. There were - other things he needed to attend to. Things he didn’t tell me about. Things that had been going on for months. That hurt. Knowing he’d been lying again.”

Of course. Of course he had been. Dorian didn’t have it in him to be surprised at the revelation. Anger, he found all too easily.

“What did he lie about?”

“He - it’s something to do with ancient Elvhenan. With the world he wants our child to grow up in. I think…” She trailed off, and would not meet his eyes.

“Has he changed his mind?” Bull asked, his voice even, his eye focused intensely on her.

Ellana hesitated before she answered. Her hand massaged the opposite shoulder, trying to rid herself of the tension her body radiated.

“I don’t know.”

_Shit. Shit, shit, shit_.

It wasn’t what he said, but it was what he thought, over and over.

“I need some time to understand,” Ellana said. “Some distance. I need - I needed to feel like I had some control. So I left. But I also left my crystal behind. I’m sure he’ll call once he realized what’s happened. We’ll sort this out.”

“Are you ready to talk to him?” Bull asked.

Ellana shifted in her seat and sighed. “I’ll decide when he calls.”

Dorian felt an argument bubble up on his tongue once more, but he knew she wouldn’t respond well to him pushing her too hard. He’d been on the receiving end of her sharp tongue before. There was no need for that now.

“Well then. I will be sure to tell you the instant he does. What shall we do in the interim?”

“Honestly,” Ellana said, sheepish again. “I’d rather like to take a nap. I’m afraid I’m not very much fun these days.”

“That implies that you were ever any fun at all, my dear.”

Ellana smiled then, picked up a pillow, and flung it half-heartedly at his head. “Ass.”

“You’re the one who invited me here.”

“You’re the one making me regret it.”

They bantered easily around the angry knot in his throat until she truly started to drift off and had to go to her bed, saying something about not being allowed to sleep on her back any more. When she was gone, he let out the breath he’d been holding.

“Yeah,” Bull said. “I agree.”

Dorian took Bull’s big hand and held it tight.

*

The rest of the day passed amiably enough, with a short walk around the small town where they were staying and a discussion of the difference between the magical lights used there and in Minrathous (as far as Ellana understood it). Despite her nap, she still wanted to go to bed rather early, saying she needed to take whatever sleep the “little creature” would give her. She’d invited him to put his hand on her belly then, guiding him until he could press down and feel a spot harder than the others.

“That’s - ?”

“A head, yes.”

“Wow,” Bull said, when it was his turn. Ellana’s smile was soft. Content. But her eyes were downcast. She left for her own room not long after.

Dorian lay awake long after Bull fell asleep, his mind still ticking. He remembered that day years before when Ellana told him how much she wanted something simple - just a house with bookcases and murals and Solas at her side. She had that now. How dare he try and take it away. It wasn’t his place to say anything though. Not yet. He needed to just sleep, and stay out of it, and be there for her the way he always had, no matter how many times Solas hurt her, that was all he could do -

“Dorian?”

Dorian jerked awake. When had he fallen asleep, anyway? He must have been thinking so intently about the issue that he thought he heard Solas. Odd.

“Dorian, it’s Solas. It’s urgent.”

Sleep drained away from him fully. That was no dream. The crystal on the bedside table was glowing.

He disentangled himself from Bull’s warm embrace and stumbled into the hall. Solas kept calling for him. With each repetition of his name, Dorian felt his face grow hotter and hotter.  _It’s not my place,_  he reminded himself.  _I’ll just tell him to wait a moment while I see if Ellana’s ready to talk to him. That’s all._

“Ah, Solas,” he said when he’d collected himself. “Didn’t recognize the voice at first.”

“Where is Ellana?”

Straight to the chase then. The elf’s voice was curt. Worried, he guessed, if he wanted to be charitable about it. But it still rankled. Dorian took a breath.

“Dorian? Are you there?”

Dorian let out the breath.  _Not my place._

“Yes, I am here. Forgive me if I’m not always quick on the uptake when I am suddenly roused from bed.”

“My apologies. I returned home and Ellana was gone, and I think you can understand my fear. Is she with you, or no?”

_Not my place. I don’t have all the facts. One more deep breath._

“Yes, she is with us. Apparently home was no longer feeling very hospitable to her.”

A long pause followed. Dorian pressed the heel of his hand into his forehead, grateful Solas couldn’t see him. He hadn’t meant it to come out quite so clipped.

“Is that what she said?” Solas said at last, more quietly now.

“Not exactly, no. But she said enough.”

“I must speak to her. This is all a - misunderstanding.”

Dorian looked at the door across the hall and pictured Ellana sleeping there, peaceful. Peaceful and kind and deserving of so much more than what life had given her. Solas was going to disturb that peace. No - he already had. Dorian didn’t need the details. He didn’t need to know exactly what it was that took Solas to Oruvun. All he needed was the look in Ellana’s eyes when she talked about it. His hand got tight on the crystal.

“Congratulations, Solas.”

“Pardon me?”

“You heard me. I said congratulations. You have invented a new kind of stupid. The kind of stupid that makes me wonder if you ever think anything through.”

“I don’t -”

“Please,” Dorian said, swiping a hand through the air, no longer caring that Solas could not see. “Let me review it for you. You fall in love with a woman knowing you are going to break her heart and destroy her people. You leave her broken and alone for four years and you are never once there to pick up any of the pieces or see the ways you hurt her. You torment her in her bloody dreams for good measure. She dedicates herself to finding some way to redeem your arrogant, short-sighted ass, and for a brief period of time, it seems like she has succeeded. You come back to her, promise her forever, get her pregnant with your child, and then wake up one morning and decide that it isn’t enough for you after all. You have to start the whole charade all over again and leave her frightened and alone. Have I missed anything? Was it worth it, Solas? Are you satisfied now?”

Solas had tried to break in several times, but he was at last successful.

“If you would let me explain myself -”

“This is not about you. This is about her.” His voice was shaking a little now, but he didn’t try to hide it. Let Solas know. Let him realize how angry he was. Let him know that there was someone who would protect her even when she might not protect herself. “I love Ellana like the sister I never had. She has never been anything but more trusting and more kind than you deserve, and this is how you repay her?”

Silence this time. No attempt at an explanation. Good. That was what he wanted. His hand was shaking now too, he realized dimly.

“Has it occurred to you yet that the only person who ever seems to stand in the way of her happiness and yours is you?”

Silence again.

“You have been blessed with a woman far better than you deserve. If it was up to me, I would take her back to Minrathous and you would never see her or your child again.” He let out a long sigh. “But that’s not what she wants. She wants you. So I’m going to go into her room, and I am going to hand her this crystal, and you are going to spend the rest of your existence making every sacrifice you can for her happiness. Am I understood?”

More silence - and then, at last, Solas responding.

“I never dreamed of anything else.”

Dorian laughed. “Then you have a foolish way of showing it.”

He was standing at the door to Ellana’s room when Solas’s voice interrupted him once more.

“Dorian - for what it is worth - I have always been grateful that she has you. And you are right.”

Dorian was deflated, as he often was after an argument. There were other things he wanted to say, of course. His energy was gone now.

“You can tell her that yourself,” he said. “One moment.”

He went into the room and gently roused Ellana as he had a hundred times in camps from the Hissing Wastes to the Storm Coast. He gave her the crystal and stood for a moment, watching the way it lit up her furrowed brows as she listened to whatever words Solas was offering her in Elvhen. He took another breath, and hoped, and prayed, that this time it would all be enough, and Solas would stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/)!


	9. Ancient and New

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a General rating; however, it does feature a non-graphic description of breastfeeding. If that bothers you somehow, I would skip this one, in which Ellana grapples with feelings of inadequacy as a new mother to tiny little Ashara.
> 
> Happy Mother’s Day, everyone! I haven’t written many characters who are mothers, so Ellana has a special place in my heart today. I have a chapter of “Awakened” ready to post that does feature a mother-daughter moment between these two, but I wanted to do something sweeter and less sad for the occasion (because lord knows “Awakened” is not a bundle of laughs right now). It also occurred to me that I have done a lot to show Solas’s insecurities as a father and not as much with Ellana’s as a mother (though I do think she has considerably less, by virtue of her personality). I think this would have been one of the biggest ones, early on.

Ellana didn’t know how she could be so tired and so easily woken at the same time.

It was the second time Ashara had woken that night, and of course in the last three weeks of her life Ellana had not gotten a full night’s sleep, but all she had to do was whimper and Ellana’s eyes were open and her arms were reaching out to the cradle at the side of their bed. She murmured quiet, nonsensical things as she sat up, ancient words she was sure her own mother whispered once in the middle of the night in the shadow of an aravel, and that her grandmother must have said once in a ramshackle house in the Ostwick alienage.

“I know, da’len. Poor thing. I know you’re hungry. One moment.”

Another noise stirred the night - a soft snore that made her snort. Solas must have been truly exhausted if he was snoring. He would never believe her when he woke. Ellana knew she should wake him now. Even as tiny as Ashara was (well, she wasn't _that_ small - Ellana was sore in places that attested otherwise) it was difficult to pick her up with only one good hand and half an arm, and supporting her while she nursed was easier with the sling. Solas always helped them get settled. But Ashara was whimpering louder now and it pulled on places in her heart she didn’t know existed until three weeks ago when she came squalling into the world. Ellana was a mother now. This was as natural as breathing. She’d held dozens of babies before, when she still lived with the clan. She shouldn’t need help now, with her own child.

She knelt down by the cradle and slid her remaining hand underneath the small, soft body, thankful she was swaddled tightly. She cradled her head and slid the stump of her left arm into place beneath her neck, then slid her hand back down to her rump and began to lift her - but she at once felt the instability of the position, immediately pictured the little body slipping from her grasp, falling -

She drew back quickly, her heart pounding, and Ashara began to cry in earnest, distressed, maybe, by the sudden lack of contact, by a mother who couldn’t even feed her own child, stupid stupid stupid -

“Vhenan?”

Solas was standing at her side.

“Is everything fine? Is she alright?”

“She’s hungry and I can’t pick her up.”

And, gods, now _she_ was crying too. Hot, embarrassed tears.

“It’s fine, ma sa’lath. Sit back on the bed and let me help.”

She arranged the pillows how she liked them and then sat back, trying not to sniffle like some simpering fool, then found the sling where she’d left it on the nightstand and put it on. Solas lifted Ashara gently, effortlessly, as if he hadn’t been half-afraid to old her when she was first born, rocking her and whispering words Ellana couldn’t hear until it she had a pillow in place on her lap and her breast was bared.

“Ready,” she said, pausing to wipe the tears away quickly. (Really, this was getting absurd. She’d cried more times in the last three weeks than she had in the previous three years, it seemed.)

Solas undid Ashara’s swaddling and settled her into the sling with one last, fond caress of her downy head. Thankfully, Ashara was not a fussy child when it came to feeding - once she was in place, she latched on gratefully, and Ellana felt her heart ease at once.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” Solas asked when he was back in bed.

“I don’t know - I just wanted to do it myself. Like my mother did and her mother did.” She rubbed Ashara’s back, tried to memorize the exact curve of her cheek, her smell, the impossible closeness of the moment, her tiny hand where it rested on the upper slope of her breast, the sharp tug of her gumless mouth. “I just want to be enough for her.”

The words came out as an afterthought, more addressed to her daughter than to Solas, but he reached out nonetheless.

“You already are. It is impossible for you to be anything else. It does not matter that you need help sometimes. Who wouldn’t?” He slid closer on the bed - slowly, though, wary as he had been in the weeks since he left for Oruvun against her wishes. As if she might push him away. When she didn’t react, he slid close enough that their legs touched, and draped an arm across her shoulder. “Besides - I think I would want to wake up anyway, even if you didn’t need my help. We will only have so many moments like this.”

“Oh, don’t be overly romantic,” she laughed. “You would be dead asleep right now if you could be. You were snoring, you know.”

He scoffed. “Impossible.”

She rolled her eyes, but didn’t bother fighting further. He was right. They would only have so many moments like this. She tried to let the worries fade to the back of her mind (that she would never be able to lift her daughter without a care, that if something happened she might not be able to pull her out of harm’s way, that maybe she would be too strict or too kind). They didn’t fade all the way, remaining like a hum in the back of her mind. Solas helped her switch the side Ashara fed on, and then eased her into the best position to rub and pat her back. Then his head fell back against the headboard and his gentle snore began again, and eventually Ashara’s breathing grew even as she fell asleep against Ellana’s shoulder.

 _I should move,_ Ellana thought - see if she could wake Solas up at the exact moment he snored again, have him swaddle Ashara once more and put her safely in her crib, and catch some much needed rest. But she chose instead to remain, safe and close and warm and _enough_ , watching both of them sleep, trying to preserve that feeling of belonging, ancient and new all at once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/)!


	10. New Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This little piece was inspired by the lovely and talented [Valyrias](http://archiveofourown.org/users/valyrias), who pointed out the low-key sub!Solas thread present in Solas and Ellana's dynamic, which gets most heavily implied in Awakened. I decided to finally write a more explicitly sub!Solas scene for them, and this was the result! It originally appeared [here on Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/post/167395197301/new-again).
> 
> Obviously, this chapter is explicit. It also features some very light bondage, and orgasm delay/denial, but it's mostly Ellana going "I have no idea what I'm doing but I like this" and Solas enjoying himself thoroughly. It takes place sometime around Chapter 11 of "Body of Knowledge" (so, they've had Ashara, but she's still fairly young).

The first time Ellana told Solas that she’d rather like to push him back on the bed and tie him up like a present and make him beg her for his release, she had no idea what the hell she was saying.

It sort of - slipped out one night, two glasses of wine in, Ashara sound asleep in her own bed (for once) the dance that led them to their own room already underway.

Solas blinked twice, quickly. His previous arrogant grin slackened, his lips parting. Was he blushing? She was fairly certain he was blushing. He’d been teasing her before, his voice light and airy, but when he replied, his voice was low.

“Very well.”

She looked carefully into his blue eyes. Her own pulse sped. He was serious? Was she serious?

It wasn’t as though she hadn’t imagined something similar. She’d wrestled him down and pinned him before, in their Inquisition days, when her body was a honed instrument of sinew and death. And she’d never been shy about telling him what she wanted him to do - she’d taken the lead by necessity in many of their first intimate encounters, when he was wary and awestruck all at once. And - she did like those moments. Seeing him utterly unguarded, safe, trusting - and now, reunited, in their own home, no secrets between them for years -

She could feel her pulse in her throat. She stepped towards him. They had backed into their bedroom.

“Well then,” she said. “To the bed with you.”

He took one step back towards their bed - but he raised an eyebrow, too. He was blushing - or flushing, more likely. Not embarrassed but excited.

“I thought you said you would push me onto it.”

That arrogant half-smile was back.

She smiled in return. She was not an instrument of death anymore. She was older, her muscles smaller, her stomach soft and stretch marked, one arm a scarred stump. But her body was hers and so was he, and she drew on that strength as she walked towards him.

“Maybe I just want you to listen to what I tell you.”

He was standing against their bed now, his lips still curved in amusement. He toyed with the edge of the comforter with those long, lovely fingers. An oddly nervous gesture for him. Ellana ran her hand up his chest to feel the rapid beat of his heart when she reached him, then she put her hand on the side of his neck so she could feel it even better, right under her fingers. She pulled him down and kissed him, lightly, and then deeper - tongues, and a harsh relieved sigh from him. That was when she pulled back, and pushed him onto the bed.

It was a gentle push - he would not have fallen if he had not wanted to - but he did it, without looking, without questioning. He fell back onto the bed with his arms already outstretched. He was so trusting, lying there, looking up at her. He was half-hard already in his soft cotton breeches.

And all she could do was giggle, suddenly. Like she was a teenager again, and not a grown woman who loved and knew every inch of the man in front of her.

“What, ma’lath?” He asked. He brushed his leg against hers.

“I’m sorry,” Ellana said. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“You are doing nothing that you don’t want to do, and I am doing nothing that I don’t want to do.”

“You want to be tied up and left at my mercy?” She rested one knee on the bed, just barely putting her weight there. Ready to lean down over him, but not quite there. That very first wave of excitement ran through her - that first sharp prick of arousal between her legs. The pause that followed dampened it - but then Solas wet his lips and spoke quietly, sincerely.

“I do. I trust no one more than I trust you.”

Ellana was hot under the jacket she wore. Did she always get this hot under her jacket? She undid the first two buttons at her collar, then stopped. If they were going to do this…

“Undress me.”

He sat up and deftly found each and every gleaming clasp on her coat. He slid it off of her shoulders, then worked the knot on her breastband loose, his eyes flicking up to hers now and then. There was an odd deference to that. He wanted to look her in the eye but he didn’t know if he should.  _Why_  was that so exciting? She’d lost count of the number of times they made love long ago, but now, this, so electric and new -

When she was bare he laid back on the bed and she looked down at him - his cut jaw, his pink mouth, the lace of his lower lashes on his pale cheek. Beautiful, and waiting. How many times, years ago, had she seen that face in her dreams and thought  _if only he would listen_? He would listen now. He would give himself over entirely.

Her cunt twitched. That first perfect spasm.

“Undress yourself.”

He untied his own tunic. He didn’t need to in order to take it off but when he did it fell open and exposed the line of his collarbone and cast shadows down his chest and he must have known she liked that, damn him. But he was playing, toying, and she wanted to see him wrecked, unmade, bare to his bones, hers, and he’d given that to her, told her he wanted it.

“Did I say to take your time?”

“No,” he replied. “But you didn’t say to rush, either.”

“Take off your clothes, harellan,” she said. Her stomach fluttered at the word. A step too far? Too insulting?

There was a little smile on his face, a little tremor in his fingers.

He took his clothes off, as elegantly as he could, until he reaches the breeches. He couldn’t stand up with her in the way. He had to shimmy them off, lifting his hips in the process. It made his cock bounce against his stomach when it was free. She curled her toes in base delight at the sight. They’d barely kissed, barely touched, and he was rosy-red with desire. She did that to him.

She leaned over him on the bed, not touching yet. He loved to be touched. He needed it. She would make him wait a little longer. No - make it so he  _couldn’t_  touch. She took hold of one of his wrists and pinned it above his head, marveling at the loose and easy grace of his muscles.

Shit. She couldn’t pin the other. She was putting a good amount of weight on him, too, without a second hand to balance herself.

He put his other hand up before she could say anything, and gripped one of the slats on the headboard.

He knew. He knew so well what she wanted, what she needed.

She bent and kissed him hard on the mouth, an unruly kiss, noisy, greedy, no finesse at all. Her hips curled forward, looking for friction from the air, something to soothe the twitching of her clit. She didn’t lower herself, though. He was greedy too, making noises into their kiss. The headboard creaked with the strength of his grip. She pulled back from the kiss.

“In my bedside table - I think there’s still a scarf. Get it out.”

She’d hated that tone in her voice once, years ago, those first few days in Skyhold. The demand. She’d softened her words -  _could you_ and  _maybe if you_  in moments when she should have ordered, firmly. She was not always comfortable with leading. But now -

She could roll her shoulders back and enjoy the way her skin tingled, the knowledge that he was in her care and she would do well by that. Solas had rolled over onto his stomach to reach for the bedside table and Ellana suddenly needed to kiss the nape of his neck, his spine. She needed to shimmy back so her hand was free to slap the round globes of his ass once, hard. She took joy in his startled yelp, the reproachful and amused look he shot her over his shoulder.

“I was doing what you asked.”

“I didn’t say it was a punishment.” She ran her hand soothingly over the red spot she’d created. “You can keep getting the scarf.”

But as he continued to lean across the bed, she ran her hand over the broad expanse of his back, along his rump - and then down between, below, to cup and knead his plump sack.

His whole body shivered. She’d always loved the textures here. The coarse hairs and the tender globes rolling underneath the thin skin. He let out a guttering sigh - lifted his hips in invitation. She was sure he wanted her touch somewhere else. She withdrew instead. She felt strangely drunk on all this - on exploring him, doing whatever she wanted with him.

“Carry on,” she said.

He lowered his hips to the bed. She didn’t miss the way they flexed downward more than they needed to as he reached for the bedside drawer. She thrilled at the thought of him rubbing against the sheets, already so wanton (but that wantonness was  _hers_ ).

“Don’t,” she said.

He paused.

“Don’t what?”

“Rub yourself against the bed. Pleasure yourself at all. I’ll decide when you come tonight. If you come.”

What a foolish, empty threat. She would let him. But this was part of the game, wasn’t it?

“Ir abelas,” he said. Slipping into Elvhen already. She wouldn’t hear a word of Trade by the time the night was out.

He lifted his hips away from the bed. She moved aside to give him room. Her nipples were tight now, too. All of her felt tight, ready, elated, confused. He sat up when he turned back, holding the scarf in both hands in offering.

“If it becomes too much,” he said. “I will say  _assan_.”

Ellana nodded. It wasn’t something she’d thought of, but it was a good idea. Shit, she should have thought of that. Wasn’t it something Bull or Dorian mentioned? Having a specific word for scenarios like this?

“You’ve done this before.”

It was an observation. She’d never cared about anyone who came before her. But he still dropped one end of the scarf to cup her cheek.

“Yes. But with you - everything is always new again.”

A moment stretched and cracked between them, a tension, and then something warm and soothing, and all they did was meet one another’s eyes as his hand fell away. They were in their own home, they were a family, and all the dark things were years and years behind them.

“Well then - lie back, and let me make you feel new again.”

Tying him was not easy, but she managed, both wrists looped together carefully with the scarf and then again through the slats and tied off, just enough to hold him, not enough to hurt. And it was good that it took a while, because he kept kissing the parts of her he could reach, saying: “Let me - let me love you now, let me give you what you deserve, move up higher, let me drink from you -”

And she kept calmly replying: “No. No. No.”

Until at last when she was done, she could sit back and take hold of his chin and say: “Do I need to gag you as well?”

He nuzzled into her touch. Looked up at her through his eyelashes. He was being  _coy_.

“Not tonight.”

“Good,” she said. “I want to hear you.”

“Hear me do what, haurasha?”

She moved back slowly over his legs, pinned them with her weight, and gripped his cock.

“Beg.”

He did.

It wasn’t even  _difficult_  to get him to do it.

Maybe it was being tied up.

Maybe it was just the huge fucking grin she couldn’t keep off of her own face as she worked him, slowly, slowly, slowly, feeling for the tension and release in his cock, gathering the skin and letting it slip back.

Maybe it was just that she’d finally given him permission to. To let go, to be, to want, safe, in her arms.

He wanted faster, slower, harder, gentler, and she always gave him the opposite. His toes curled and his legs strained and his shaft grew pinker and harder and shinier with want when she threatened to tie his legs down too, and then she had to use her mouth, had to taste him, and then she couldn’t respond to his pleas anymore, but she could feel him shake as he tried not to come, and at that point he was incoherent -  _please, please, please_  over and over. It was unbelievable to think that he’d ever been distant, that there’d ever held back, hidden himself, felt alone (he was getting too hard, too close).

She let go of his cock, let it flop back against his belly, and stood up from the bed, away from him entirely.

His head lifted at once.

“Vhenan.”

It wasn’t  _assan_  but it was clear he didn’t like this. She seized his foot and rubbed the arch with her thumb, slowly.

“Still here, love. You’re so good. I love you like this.”

He relaxed.

“Then come back.”

“And do what? Suck your cock again?”

His throat bobbed. “I would be inside you.”

Ellana pretended to consider it. Her hand slid down her belly and the first press of her fingers against her sweet, swollen nub made her shudder. She was so slick already, and her folds felt soft and good to touch and she worked her fingers faster, pressed a little harder.

“I think not.” She let him hear the hitch in her voice.

Solas writhed.

“Please.”

“No.”

“I want to feel you come undone around me, ma lath. Please.”

“No.”

She settled back on the bed - kneeling over him - and then sinking down, trapping his cock between them, so he could feel it, feel her wet, feel how she swore and ground against him and rutted into her own hand. His muscles bunched, strained. The headboard creaked. Shit, she was close. She gasped at the first real spike of pleasure through her belly (and damn her, but she wanted him in her, too - yet it felt good to hold out, good to be the one who decided).

“Don’t come,” she said. “And keep telling me what you want.”

She reached back and lined them up and then sank down on him, slowly, shivering through the slow burn of him stretching her, gasping when he went as deep as he could go. He was watching her intently, lips still parted, his cheeks so flushed she could barely make out the freckles. She hadn’t kissed him in too long. She was sure of it. When she did, she tightened her walls around him, just to feel his girth, to swallow his guttural moan at the pressure. Then she did it again - all the way out, all the way in, squeezing at the finish, and he dropped his head back to the pillow and swore. She couldn’t have that.

“No,” she said, dropping her hand down between them again and thumbing her pearl, her stomach hollowing out at the bright pleasure of the motion. “Ah - I want to see you. I want to hear your voice. Keep telling me what you want. You’ve been so good for me.”

He raised his head again and Ellana flushed from the crown of her head down her chest to see how dark his eyes had grown, the way he focused on her swirling fingers. Fuck, it felt so good, so good, she’d never gotten herself off in front of him and it was embarrassing and exhilarating and he felt thick and wonderful inside of her as she got tighter and closer. He was talking, too, in Elvhen, saying something about being too full, too heavy, something about ripening, bursting - oh, he wanted to come, he was telling her she was beautiful and he loved her and that he wanted to come, he loved her, he loved her, he loved her, he needed her, he was hers to care for and protect and cherish -

She came with a high, startled cry, pitching forward onto his chest, grinding out her release against his body, clenching and releasing - she was so sensitive that it felt like it could go on forever if she just kept rubbing against him and if he just stayed hard inside her. She could feel the slick dripping out of her, painting them both and she made long, low sounds of delight. He’d let out a cry too, and now his heart was hammering and his breath was shallow and she could feel the buzz of his magic around them.

“Did you stop yourself?” she asked when her cunt was only twitching.

He smiled, a little sheepishly. There was sweat on his forehead and the bow of his upper lip.

“It was a near thing, but - yes.”

“The things you manage to do with magic.  _Fuck_ , that was good.”

She lifted herself part of the way off of him and then sank down, and then again, short little thrusts, just to feel the thickest part of him moving inside her. He let out a shaky breath.

“Ma vhenan - I am very sensitive, after the spell, very close - I need - I want -”

“Tell me.”

And Solas, who measured each word out so carefully, who never smiled when he didn’t want to, who’d always held so, so much of the power - he begged.

“I want to come. I need to come. Please, let me come, I cannot wait, please -”

Then he was speaking Elvhen again, his head tipped back, his eyes closed, she rose and fell above him a few more times, working him in and out, and then lifted off of him completely. His head snapped back up, his eyes pleading.

“Please, emma lath, ma’asha, please -”

She wasted no time wrapping her hand around his shaft. He was hers, and he needed her.

“Yes,” she said, already jerking him rapidly. “Come for me, ma’lath.”

She missed having two hands to do this with but it was still enough for him, the quick hard pull and the swipe of her thumb against his weeping head. She always loved making him come with her hand. She loved the moment she saw his face go slack with pleasure, the moment his cock grew impossibly stiff, the moment he squeezed his eyes shut, the way his mouth dropped into a little  _oh_  of pleasure as he fell apart. He came hard, panting and whining and trembling, and the first splash of his seed hit high on his chest. Then again, again, again, as she massaged him through it, and there was so much it seemed, maybe more than usual. Her skin was hot and her pulse raced at the thought and the sight of it, the purity and clarity of the knowledge that she had loved him well, and he was utterly spent.

She kissed him while he came down. Nose, eyelids, ears, mouth, each patch of freckles on his cheeks, shoulders, throat, and each wrist, once they were free from the scarf. When he opened his eyes at last, she smiled at him.

“Ar lath ma,” he said immediately.

“Ar lath ma,” she said, with the weight and the lightness the words demanded. She felt a little at sea, all of the sudden. She was processing what she’d enjoyed, and wondering why she’d enjoyed it. He seemed to see that. He pulled her down towards him again so he could kiss her. She leaned into it - then thought better of the idea.

“You know - I would love to hold you right now, but you are a bit of a mess,” she said.

Solas glanced down at his chest and snorted. “Indeed. That will happen when you deny me.”

She looked away. “And that was - fine? Being denied?”

“Of course. I did not use my word, did I?”

“No.”

“Did you enjoy it? Being in control?”

She paused. “One moment.”

She fetched a cloth and water for him. When he was clean, he opened his arms to her, and she sank into his embrace, breathing in his musky smell and listening to the thump of his heart before sliding up to join him. He smoothed her hair back from her forehead and kissed her there, gently, making his lips plush and full.

“I did enjoy it,” she said finally. “I used to think I hated being in control. I hated having power over anyone. But I suppose I didn’t seeing it that way. I mostly enjoyed knowing I was making it good for you. Knowing I could tease you and you would like it. Seeing you so vulnerable. Knowing you trusted me.”

“I do. With everything that I am.”

His eyes weren’t blown wide with desire anymore. They were soft, and open. A different kind of vulnerability.

“I wouldn’t mind trying something like that again,” she said, later, when they were nearly asleep.

“Whatever you wish, my heart.”

He rolled away not long after, so his back was towards her. She roused herself enough to slide up behind him, and burrow her face into his neck. He was too broad, too tall for her to shelter the way he could shelter her - but she felt his sigh of contentment nonetheless.

“I want cakes in the morning,” she said.

“Then you will have cakes.”

He was right. There were cakes in the morning. Cakes and his loose, happy smile as he brought them to her. A life she’d never dared to dream of, fresh in the morning sun. She welcomed every second.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/)!


	11. The Story of An Hour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How is it possible that I have never written anything significant featuring Cullen?? In the original notes for “The World Turned Upside Down,” “Satisfied” was going to be a post-Trespasser chapter where Cullen got married and Ellana mourned what she would never have with Solas. Then it got moved up to be the post-Crestwood chapter and “Burn” became the main Trespasser chapter, and I guess I just never found a new place to fit him and their friendship in.
> 
> ANYWAY. Have a Cullen POV chapter: in which Cullen takes Solas and seven-year-old Ashara for a hike, Ashara wanders off, Solas panics, and Cullen reflects on how fatherhood has changed the once-mysterious elf.
> 
> Ellana reminds Ashara of this story in [chapter thirteen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10080125/chapters/23878329) chapter thirteen of “Awakened”, for anyone who’s curious. Title stolen from the Kate Chopin story, which has nothing to do with anything in this fic or in any other fic I’ve written, but it works so well!

Cullen was proud of what he’d built in Ferelden. So proud that it didn’t even occur to him to be nervous about hosting Ellana, Solas, and their daughter when she wrote to him saying she had business near him, but could spare some time for an old friend.

Not until the day they arrived, of course.

A day that started with the discovery that the pasture gate was left open overnight, and he spent half the morning directing the search for missing sheep, while the other half was spent double-checking the next orders for food and warm clothing and medicine before they went out. Which was when he abruptly realized that aside from sick templars and kind healers and the occasional curious traveler, he’d never really hosted anyone before.

Anywhere.

Ellana didn’t worry him. When they first met, she was alien to him - a watchful Dalish hunter, something wild and ready to bolt - but he’d watched her face down Corypheus in the snow, watched her raise the Inquisitor’s sword high above the heads of hundreds of people who depended on her, and seen her become a symbol of a better world. But most important was the night she found him on the battlements sweating through his withdrawals, and though she was due to leave for the Exalted Plains in the morning, insisted on sitting with him until he could sleep.

“I’d never leave a fellow hunter to fight a battle like this alone,” she said, matter of factly. Then: “Do you want water or whiskey?”

And though they’d only really been in a handful of battles together, from that night forward she was a comrade-in-arms.

The issue was that in the morning, Ellana would ride out to meet with the local arl to discuss a variety of trade agreements and defensive pacts (which did make him laugh, considering she’d once handed Josephine a report on a meeting with an Orlesian nobleman that said “He was an ass. Let’s ignore him.” and seemed genuinely pained at the thought of having to add more). She would return by dinner, but that meant he would be left alone with Solas and their daughter. He realized abruptly, shooing a wayward ram back into the pasture, that he wasn’t quite sure how old their daughter was now. He’d only met the girl once, when she was quite small, and that was three years ago… What sort of thing would interest her?

What’s more, he had never spent any kind of time alone with Solas.

The longest stretch of time he’d spent with him in any setting had been the journey to Halamshiral for Celene’s ball - no, to the Arbor Wilds to confront Corypheus’s forces - and both of those times the rest of the inner circle was present, so they’d barely spoken. The next longest had to be the journey to find Samson’s Tranquil friend and unravel the secrets of his armor. That journey had been just himself, Ellana, Cassandra, Thom, and Solas. It was a journey that had done little to change his impression of the mysterious apostate. He was aloof, but not unkind. He had a power and knowledge wrapped surely around himself that left Cullen with a sense of vague unease. They ended the journey no more familiar with one another than they’d started it. He didn’t even realize that the elf was Ellana’s lover, and had been for some time. Since Corypheus’s defeat, he’d seen him even less, for obvious reasons. It was still hard to imagine him settled down with Ellana in some cozy house in Enasan, a country Cullen never dreamed of existing, with a little girl, of all things.

But then they arrived, and said daughter was perched contentedly on Solas’s horse with him, and chattering steadily as they dismounted, and Solas was smiling at her.

Smiling.

“Welcome,” Cullen said as they approached him.

“Don’t just stand there, Cullen,” Ellana scolded as she approached him, her arm outstretched. He returned her brief, firm embrace. “It’s been too long.”

“It has,” he agreed. Their daughter had moved to her mother’s side now, and was peering up at him with an intensity he recognized immediately from long hours at the war table with Ellana.

“Hello,” she said. “I’m Ashara.”

“Welcome to Ferelden,” he replied. “You may not remember, but we met in Orlais once.”

“I don’t remember, but I was small then. I am bigger now. I remember things,” she said, confidently.

“Thank you for your hospitality, Cullen,” Solas said as they were ushered inside. “We will do our best not to impose.”

“Where are the soldiers?” Ashara asked, taking in his living area - which, Cullen realized, he might have cleaned a little better. “Mamae said you help soldiers.”

“I do. They don’t stay here with me - their home is just across the way.”

“Do they need a lot of help?”

“Some of them.”

“Do they -”

“Hush, da’len,” Ellana said. “We only just arrived. Questions can wait.”

Ashara looked ready to argue, but a raised eyebrow from her mother seemed to quell the urge. Then again, the appearance of his sleepy mabari, Calenhad, from another room also helped. Her mouth gaped at the sight. The hound was, after all, close to her height.

“Fen?” she said.

“No,” Solas replied.

“Da’fen?”

“No. He is simply a different breed of dog, not a little wolf.”

Ah. Fen like Fen’Harel. Cullen wondered if she knew. Unlikely. She was still quite young - maybe seven or eight, he realized now, though she was built more slightly than his nieces and nephews, and that made it hard to tell. Nieces and nephews - that gave his memory the jogging it needed.

“Perhaps tomorrow we can take Calenhad on a hike with us.”

“Can we go up the mountain?” Ashara asked. “But not all the way to Skyhold. That would be far. Unless I rode on him?”

“I would not recommend that. My nephew tried it once, and it didn’t end well.”

“We won’t go all the way up the mountain, but this part of Ferelden is quite beautiful. You would enjoy exploring it,” Solas assured her.

They toured the rest of the small house, including the room where they would stay, and despite her mother’s warning, Ashara found plenty of things to ask questions about - from his old armor, polished and carefully preserved on its stand, to a map on the wall, to a plate he’d left behind after dinner one night. It was little wonder that when they returned to the living room below, she fell asleep almost instantly on the couch.

“Leave her for now,” Ellana said. “It was a long ride here.”

Before they went to sit at the table, Solas smoothed the blanket they’d draped over her and carefully tucked a curl behind her long ear. Then he hesitated a moment, simply looking down at her, before finally turning to join them. They were the practiced movements of a ritual, and Cullen felt a sense of quiet wonder in his chest at the gesture.

*

The weather held the next day, and they set out for their hike not long after Ellana left for the arl’s castle. The path they were to take wound through the hills to an old Alamarri shrine that Cullen thought Solas might find interesting, and the first part of their journey proceeded in companionable silence, broken only by Ashara’s questions and comments. They’d had to leave Calenhad behind, to her sadness, but she agreed that the ailing templar he was comforting needed it more.

“I am impressed with your progress,” Solas commented. “I know that your own withdrawal from lyrium was a journey. It must be gratifying to see others through it.”

“It is. Some of them have gone on to start similar refuges in other countries. It’s a necessary step in the reform Cassandra seeks.”

“Agreed. It is admirable work.”

“Papae, look!” Ashara bounded over to them, a rather large leaf in hand. She held it up to her face, and it covered her completely.

“Why would you want to hide yourself away?” Solas asked, an amused note in his voice.

“To surprise monsters,” she replied, as if it was obvious.

“I see. How would you hide the rest of yourself?”

That puzzled her. She wandered away from them again, presumably to add more leaves to her collection. Solas called after her once, reminding her not to stray too far, and she obeyed, never going too far to the left or right of the path.

When they reached the shrine, it was a little past midday. It sat on top of a steep slope, with forest a short distance away on either side. It was directly exposed to the sun, and Cullen could feel himself beginning to sweat.

“This is remarkable,” Solas said as he examined the shrine. “I remember when we went around the Hinterlands finding relics related to Tyrdda Bright-Axe - this seems similar.”

“I believe it’s about the same age,” Cullen confirmed.

“It’s hot,” Ashara said, a little plaintively.

“A moment, da’len,” Solas replied. “We’ll leave soon.”

It wasn’t long, Cullen would swear later. It couldn’t have been. He and Solas chatted about the various features of the shrine, and walked in another circle of it. It wasn’t long. But it was long enough.

“Ashara?” Solas said, when there was a lull in their conversation, glancing around them, and then turning in a full circle. Cullen did the same. There was no sign of her, and suddenly he felt cold. “Ashara?” He called again, raising his voice.

“She was just here,” Cullen said, more to himself than to Solas.

“She wouldn’t have gone far,” he said, already striding off in one direction, calling her name again. Cullen turned and went the other way, scanning quickly for any sign of movement, wishing they’d been able to bring Calenhad, if only because then they’d be assured more quickly of which direction she went. Solas was right. She couldn’t have gone far. They hadn’t been that distracted. Maker, her legs weren’t even that long…

But before long they’d both circled back to the shrine.

“Any sign?” Cullen asked. Solas shook his head once. A harsh gesture. “Where would she go?”

“I don’t know. She doesn’t - we live in a city. We don’t take her to the woods often. She’d find anything new or interesting and go straight for it, not even think to tell us - and she doesn’t know enough to know how to find her way back -”

Solas’s voice had an unfamiliar note in it. Panic. Not fear, or worry. Simple, elemental, visceral panic.

Cullen needed to think. Strategize. See a path through this. Arrange the pieces on the board in his mind, pick the most likely scenario -

“She said she was feeling hot,” Cullen said. “It’s shadier down this way. She was standing not far from you, and you were on this side of the shrine, too -”

Solas was already walking down the hill, eating up ground with his long legs, calling her name again and again. Cullen followed, his own heart hammering, searching for any sign amongst the dark summer leaves for something quick and bright and full of life.

*

It took an hour to find her.

Cullen only realized that later, when he observed the position of the sun above them as they walked back. If anyone had asked him before, he would have sworn it had been forever.

He’d followed Solas at first, but when they got further into the forest, he realized something.

“The shrine - if she goes back in search of us, it’s where she’ll go. One of us should wait for her.”

“Go.”

It was the sort of thing he expected from Solas. No words wasted. His voice was still rough with panic, but there was little to read in his face other than single-minded focus. Cullen had every confidence in that moment that he would find her. Or, at least, he tried to. Waiting in the sun by the shrine, pacing, scanning for any sign of her, daring once or twice to stray down the hill and call her name, he began to doubt again. Should he return to home and get more help? But how would he leave word for Solas? And what if Ashara returned to this spot in the meantime? What would Ellana think when she returned home and they weren’t back? At what point would she begin to worry?

What words were there to tell her that her child was lost?

He prayed. _Merciful Andraste - she has given so much. Don’t take her child._

When he saw them come out of the trees, Cullen doubted his eyes at first. Surely it was wishful thinking. But then his heart leapt. He’d found her. But Solas didn’t have an arm around his daughter’s shoulders, or her hand tucked safely into his. Her eyes were trained on the ground, and she was keeping a careful distance from him.

And Solas - his face was streaked with tears.

“Let us return,” he said, and his voice was hoarse.

“Of course.”

Cullen had no idea what to do.

Every now and then Solas would let out a heavy, wet sigh, or pinch the bridge of his nose, and then stare at her. She would look hastily away. At one point, she crossed behind Cullen to stand on his left, away from her father - but then she looked at him pleadingly. He said something in Elvhen, something angry and pained. She never responded.

It was a very, very long walk.

By the time they reached the house, some of the tension had evaporated from Solas’s shoulders. At one point he asked to pause at a stream, where he splashed water on his face, which seemed to compose him. When they entered the house, he spoke for the first time in a while.

“Da’vhenan,” he began. But she took off like lightning upstairs, and the sound of a door closing followed.

Solas sank into a chair and stared straight ahead. Cullen stood there, watching him. If it had been anyone else in their motley group of associates, he would have at least known where to start. But Solas? Solas, who’d lived for centuries, experienced an entirely different world, who walked the Fade like it was nothing? Solas, so composed he never once gave away all the ancient rage and pain he carried locked tight in himself, or the equally powerful love he felt for Ellana? What was there to say?

“Are you hungry?” Cullen asked finally. “Do you want - Maker, I don’t know - a drink?”

“No. I - should apologize.”

“There’s no need. I was terrified. I can only imagine - if she were my child…”

Solas dropped his head into his hands.

“She did get hot,” he said at last. “She wandered into the shade, and then saw a tree with a large knot that interested her - and then heard a stream, and then followed it… that’s where I found her sitting. She wasn’t even lost, she said. She just lost track of time. Forgot to tell us where she’d gone. I was so frightened - all I could do was shout. I shook her by the shoulders. I’ve never - not even once - never even thought about -”

His voice broke.

Cullen wanted to crawl into himself and disappear. He wanted to get on his horse and ride straight for the arl’s castle and drag Ellana back by force, if necessary. He wanted to go back in time and wipe the idea of the hike from his mind completely. Instead, he took a bracing breath, and spoke.

“You’re a good father. I know - we don’t know each other well - and we don’t see each other often - but - I can tell. The way you talk to her. The way you care for her. How happy she is. You can’t break that in an afternoon.”

He smiled - just a little quirk at the corners of his mouth - and then finally met his gaze.

“Thank you, Cullen.”

“You’re welcome.” A weight was lifted, and he took a deep breath. “Well, I’m having a drink.”

“That would be agreeable - if the offer still stands.”

“Of course.”

He got out the Antivan brandy Josephine had sent for his last birthday, fished around for his two nicest glasses, and poured a finger in each. He handed one to Solas, who raised it in a salute that he returned, and then they both settled down to wait.

*

Ellana returned not long before sundown, tired and ready to eat and then sleep - until Solas told her what happened.

“And she hasn’t come down?” She asked at once.

“No. I went to the door, but she did not reply.”

“Let me talk to her.”

She was upstairs for some time, leaving Solas sitting ramrod straight on the couch. When she returned, it was with Ashara’s hand securely in her own. The girl’s eyes were still downcast when they stood before the two men.

“Go on,” Ellana said gently.

“I am very sorry,” she said. “I should have thought about what I was doing. I shouldn’t have left. Please forgive me.” Her eyes flicked first to her father, and then to Cullen, and then back to the floor.

“It’s all right,” Cullen said at once. “We’re just happy you’re safe.”

Solas was still silent - until Ashara looked up once more and met his gaze.

“Come here,” he said, holding out his hands. Without hesitation, she went to him and he wrapped his arms around her, and for a long, silent moment, they stayed that way. When she pulled back, he smiled at her, and tucked a curl behind her ear.

“Back upstairs,” Ellana said, sternly. “You’re still in trouble. But now you see, yes?”

Ashara nodded, and went back upstairs. It wasn’t until later - two more glasses of brandy later, glasses Ellana joined in on - that Cullen even thought to ask.

“You said she would see now before she went upstairs. What was that about?”

Ellana laughed softly, and took Solas’s hand before speaking. It was the first time he’d seen her touch him, he realized. “When I went up, the first thing she said was ‘Papae hates me now. He’s never going to love me again.’ I had to explain to her that when people are afraid for someone they love, they sometimes show it in strange ways. It’s fine, vhenan,” she said at once, reacting to what to Cullen had been an imperceptible shift in Solas’s mood. “Don’t worry yourself any more than you have. I bet in a year or two she won’t even remember this day.”

“In a year or two she’ll be finding new and more terrifying ways to explore the world,” he said, bleakly.

“True. Want a wayward child, Cullen? She’ll do chores on the farm. We’ll come get her when she’s grown.”

“I think I’ll stick to templars, thanks.”

They whiled away the rest of the evening that way, sharing brandy and old stories, until at last it was time for bed. They stayed for another day before they had to be on their way to Denerim, and after that Cullen’s life returned to its usual routines. But after that, whenever he heard of someone speak of the Dread Wolf, or thought back on a time he saw Solas as a statue, imposing and unforgiving - he remembered the sight of them in his living room, Ashara asleep on the couch, Solas smoothing the blanket around her, and smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realized I wrote a story featuring Cullen and he didn’t say “Maker’s breath” once. Is this allowed? Am I in trouble?
> 
> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/)!


	12. River

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This originally appeared [here on Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/post/166685300411/river).
> 
> This is a deleted scene from the epilogue of Awakened, and it is rated teen for general suggestiveness (but nothing serious). In it, Solas is feeling grumpy about Ashara's new relationship with Lucius, and Ellana decides to confront him about why. Family fluff and feels ensue.

Ellana never thought that fruit preserves would play an important role in her life, but a week into their family stay at Dorian and Bull’s villa, that opinion was rapidly changing.

The problem wasn’t so much the preserves as it was Lucius and Ashara and the preserves, and the fact that the two were very obviously coming down from the same room together each morning, and the fact that whenever they passed the preserves their fingers brushed, or that sometimes Ashara tried to keep the preserves from Lucius so he would have to put his arms around her in an effort to steal them back. But it really came to a head on the morning when Ashara got some of the preserves on the corner of her mouth, and Lucius reached out and wiped them away with his thumb, and their eyes met and Ashara blushed just enough that Solas finally stood and left the table.

As he seemed tempted to every morning that week.

Dorian laughed until he had to put his cup of tea down.

So, really, the problem was between the preserves and Ashara and Lucius and Solas, and Dorian wasn’t helping, and Ellana wasn’t sure who to scold first.

“What?” Ashara kept asking. “I don’t see what’s so funny.”

“What’s so funny is seeing the Dread Wolf himself, creator of the Veil, rebel god, acting like a child. Maker, his face. Do you think you two could do that again at dinner?”

Now Ashara was really blushing. Lucius wasn’t looking up from his plate.

“Hush, Dorian. Solas isn’t the only one acting like a child,” Ellana said at last, though there was little heat in her voice.

It was unseasonably warm, so they made plans to go to the nearby river later in the day when it got too hot for anything else. There was some scrambling for appropriate swimming clothes for everyone to wear - Ellana joked about swimming nude, which won her a scandalized look from her own daughter - and then it was time to go through the kitchen and see what they could pack. She found Solas in there, seated on a low bench, rewrapping the leather straps that protected his staff.

“Please tell me you aren’t planning on using that on anyone in particular,” she said.

“What?” he replied, distant.

“I take it you’re over your display at breakfast, then?”

“Display? I was simply done with my meal.”

Ellana rolled her eyes, though he didn’t look up to see it. She was holding the plate with the remains of his breakfast in her hand. If he didn’t feel like acknowledging what was going on, she didn’t feel like pressing at the moment.

“There are plans to go down to the river. Will you come?”

“Of course.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to. This has been an awful lot of socializing for you, this past week. I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to spend a little quiet time alone.”

“I will be fine, vhenan.”

She set down his plate and ran her hand along his shoulder on her way to see what they could pack. The corners of his mouth lifted in response to her slight touch and he looked up at last. So he wasn’t in a completely foul mood - at least not anymore.

She managed to catch Ashara alone before they left for the river to speak to her about it.

“You know, you might save a little more of your affection for Lucius when you are alone,” she said when they were waiting for the others to be ready.

“I’m sorry,” Ashara said. She fiddled with the clothes she’d borrowed from Maevaris’s older daughter. They did sit strangely on her narrower frame. “Have we been bad? We didn’t mean to. It’s just…”

“No, da’vhenan. You haven’t done anything terribly wrong. I know that restraint is hard when you’re in those first stages of love. I only wanted to point it out to you. You might want to consider that there are other people around you who might not - appreciate the displays of affection.”

“You mean Papae,” she said flatly, her blue eyes narrowing.

“Yes.”

“He’s being ridiculous.”

“And this surprises you?”

Ashara snorted. “Not really. It’s just - we only have a few more days here, then Lucius goes back to Minrathous and we go back to Enasan. I don’t really want to spend that time worrying about what Papae thinks.”

“Fair enough. I’ll talk to him, if you’ll promise not to try and irritate him.”

“I’m never irritating,” Ashara said, lifting her chin with a comical superiority.

“Yes,” Ellana said dryly. “And I’m the queen of Antiva.”

In retrospect, Ellana might have done well to speak to Lucius, as well. She would hardly have thought it necessary. He was a kind, even-tempered young man - a good balance to Ashara’s flurries of feeling and action. He watched her with a bemused adoration as she went on about whatever thought had popped into her mind. He teased her gently when she started to take something too seriously.

He was also the one who picked Ashara up and threw her straight into the river not long after they arrived.

“What’s the matter?” He said as she walked back up the bank towards him, drenched and furious. The loose clothing she’d borrowed from Mae’s daughter was plastered to her every curve and angle now. “Didn’t you spend the entire walk here claiming it was better to go in all at once? That the shock to the body is actually healthy according to several studies conducted at the University of Orlais?”

“You -” Ashara sputtered. “That was -”

“I don’t think I’ve actually seen you speechless before, Ash,” Lucius said with a chuckle. He snuck an arm around her and pulled her closer to him. She put up only a token resistance. “Maybe I should throw you in there again.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Ashara said, pushing him back.

It led, predictably, to a bout of chasing around the waterline, and though soon they weren’t the only ones involved, when Ellana looked for Solas she saw that he had already moved further down the river from everyone, and was watching with a scowl. While Dorian and Bull lounged and Mae and her husband began setting out the food, Ellana decided to join her bond mate, and finally deal with things head on.

“All right,” Ellana said when she reached him, sitting down in the sand beside him. “Out with it.”

“Out with what?” he said.

“How irritated you are with them,” she said, nodding towards the ongoing display. Ashara and Lucius had separated from the others, even their friend Claudia. It was just the two of them now, crossing a sandbank to the other side of the river, hands loosely linked. “We’ve danced around it long enough. Just admit it. You hate that she’s found a lover. You hate that they’re running about the villa every day hand in hand stealing kisses when they think no one’s looking and that they’re clearly sleeping in the same room.”

“It is not that at all.”

He was indignant, and in denial, and there was a time that might have irritated her - his constant obstinance. There would surely be times in the future when it still would. But she had a feeling she knew what he needed now, so she simply leaned against him.

“Well then - enlighten me. What is it, exactly? Why can you barely seem to stand the sight of them?”

Solas flicked away a leaf that had fallen into his lap, harder than necessary.

“He calls her Ash. We gave her a beautiful name full of meaning and promise and he reduces it to a single mispronounced symbol that means only death and destruction in the human tongue.”

Ellana snorted, considered making a comment about human tongues, and thought better of it.

“Is that all?”

“He is intelligent enough but too quiet. He cannot possibly challenge her the way she deserves.” There was more heat in his voice now.

“And?”

“And he should not be encouraging these - displays. He is old enough to know better than to behave like this in public. And for that matter, he is too old for her.”

She had to laugh at that and look him in the eye now. “Oh, really? Remind me - did we ever figure out exactly how old you are compared to me? Even setting aside your actual age, you didn’t seem to have any issues pretending to be a man in his forties pursuing a woman in her late twenties. He’s only five years older than her.”

He did blush and press his lips together at that. It made him look younger. “That was different. You were - older. In many ways. Ashara is still a child.”

A shout drew their attention and Ellana saw that Ashara had successfully pushed Lucius into the river at last. She was bent double on the opposite shore, laughing, her dark hair still dripping around her face. And - she had to admit, it was strange to think of the daughter who climbed chairs in search of sweets to steal or begged her father to do one more little spell before bedtime now that Ashara was so tall, and now that Lucius who was taller still was coming towards her, clearly ready to scoop her back into his arms, wet clothes and all.

“She isn’t,” Ellana said. “Not really.”

Solas sighed and his face twisted back into a pained expression. He dug his feet deeper into the sand. “I cannot make myself accept that. I fear - I fear above all else that he will hurt her. Child or no, she is too young, too curious about the world and everything in it, for this to end well. I cannot begrudge him his human birth - but you know that alone will cause problems, before the end. I can only see that, when I look at them. The pain.”

Ellana looped her arm through his and rested her head on his shoulder. After a moment, she felt the weight of his head on top of hers.

“You are allowed to worry about her,” she said. “We both are.”

Lucius had put Ashara back down by that point. Claudia crossed the sandback to join them, the youngest of Mae’s children in tow. Ashara turned to them, shading her eyes against the sun and keeping her other arm tight around Lucius’s waist. She was saying something, but Ellana couldn’t make out the words. She felt a sudden rush instead: the person she’d known from the inside first, as stray flutters and kicks and sleepless, painful nights, was whole and grown and out in the world and she was a good person who drew other good people to her, and she was loved.

“We did well, you know,” Ellana said, though it was hard to get the words out. Solas was still, and then he moved so he could wrap his arm all the way around her shoulders and kiss her forehead.

“We did.”

They sat together on the warm, coarse sand and watched their daughter across the river as she laughed and ran in the shallow water. Ashara didn’t turn to see them until some time later, and by then almost all of the tension had ebbed from Solas’s shoulders, and the smile and wave he offered her in return was genuine. By the next morning his lips were pursed again at the sight of them, swanning down the stairs arm and arm, but Ellana just shook her head at him and smiled. He did offer to show Lucius what he meant about casting barriers later that afternoon, after all - and Ellana was well versed, by now, in watching small seeds take root and grow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Awwww. Sometimes I get feels about Ashara being all grown up since I've written her since she was, like, conceived. Then I channel those feelings into sappy one-shots like this.
> 
> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/)!


	13. Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an alternate version of Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [chapter 11](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8686498/chapters/21761831) of "Body of Knowledge," which has the same title. I went back and forth so hard on whether or not they would have a second child and ultimately decided that they were unable to. But, I literally had to write two versions of the beginning of the chapter in order to make the decision, so here's the alternative version!
> 
> There is some brief, somewhat explicit sexual content in this chapter, but no actual smut. Mostly just little Ashara being a dork and some cuteness and some brief mentions of childbirth (but nothing too gross).

Solas was more familiar with dreams gone sour than dreams that bore fruit. At least, in that sense, it did not surprise him when six months of careful counting and planning ticked by, and Ellana’s stomach remained flat. He was a man who expected disaster. Ellana, less so. She remained, in her heart of hearts, an optimist, even if she’d seen enough to know better. So every month she waited and hoped and then start to bleed, and for days she’d be angry and sad by turns.

“I started bleeding today,” she said one evening, not long before Ashara’s fifth birthday, her voice flat.

“I am sorry, vhenan,” he said quietly.

"Sorry? Does it not hurt you as well?" Her words had bite to them, strong enough that it took him aback.

  
"What? Of course it does. How could you think otherwise?"

  
"Because if I hadn't pointed it out it would have just ended there. ‘I’m sorry,’ you’d say, and then you’d go back to whatever it was you were doing before I came in." She began restlessly reorganizing papers on her desk.

  
"You know that isn't true," he said, rising, moving towards her, wondering how exactly he could convey the deep melancholy that settled into his bones every time another month went by and also the sense of resignation. Of course they were asking for too much, when they asked for this.

  
"It's just as well,” she said when he was standing directly behind her. “It isn't your body that's failing us."

  
That was it, then.

  
"Maybe - maybe it's just too late. Maybe I'm too old."

  
His throat closed a little at the thought. She was late into her third decade of life now, and though they had begun to weaken the Veil, progress moved so slowly that there was almost no change now. So slowly that it would be many years until there were any noticeable effects. If it was too late now - it was just too late.

  
"Vhenan -"

  
She raised her hand.

  
"I'm going to bed." She got all the way to the door before she turned. "It isn't you, ma'len. I'm not really angry at you."

  
That night, he found her dreaming about the Emerald Graves, watching Ashara as she ran from tree to tree (not the real Ashara - she was elsewhere, dreaming of cakes that spoke to her in foreign tongues, trying furiously to talk to them).

“I thought you never liked the Emerald Graves,” he said.

“I didn’t,” she replied. “Those rifts were always the worst. My arm would ache for hours. But the woods were beautiful. I’d like her to see them someday.”

  
"I am sure she would enjoy that, too.”

They walked a while, watching her. The spirit that had taken her form did a remarkable job imitating her mannerisms (the way she cocked her head at a sign she could not read, the way she swung her arms when she walked), bringing a smile to both their faces.

"Maybe we should stop trying," Ellana said.

  
And though Solas was old enough to know better, and more used to dreams that never came to be, he found himself to be the hopeful one.

  
"Not yet," he said.

  
Another month came and went, another day when Ellana's eyes were full of grief, another day when he said 'not yet.'

  
And then, one fine winter morning, Ellana was wretchedly ill, so ill she kept to their bed. Ashara hovered close to her, confused and distraught that Mamae would not come out and play, until finally Solas tempted her away with a trip to the library and the park that adjoined it. When they returned that evening, she was still in bed.

"Well?" He asked. She looked miserable - but he was torn between both pity and hope.

  
"I wasn't kidding last time," she said. "I really did think I was dying."

  
He took her hand and pressed it, and they shared a small, uncertain smile.

  
Solas knew how sick she'd been with Ashara, but witnessing it was something else entirely. Some days were better than others - in the sense that she was able to keep down bread and water. Then there were days in a row where even that seemed impossible, when they had to send for a healer to assist, because of course Ashara did not stop needing his attention, even when they told her why Mamae was so sick.

  
"Because there's a baby?" She asked, suspicious.

  
"Yes, da'vhenan," Ellana said, taking her hand and laying it on her stomach. "Just here."

  
"It is very small," she said after a moment.

  
"For now."

  
"How did it get there?"

  
They'd anticipated this, and shared a brief glance of confirmation before Solas spoke. They did not want to tell her any fanciful lies, and had settled on an explanation that seemed both true and simple.

  
"If a man and woman wish to have a child, he gives her something that helps make the child."

  
"So you gave something to Mamae?"

  
Ellana snorted, but covered her face before she could break into true giggles. Solas spared her a fleeting glare before he responded.

  
"Yes. Now Mamae will carry the child until it is time for it to be born, and it is making her sick right now. We need to be kind and patient until she feels better."

  
"The baby makes Mamae sick?"

  
"For now, yes."

  
Ashara's blue eyes grew wide with horror.

  
"Then it is a bad baby. You should take it back, Papae. Right now."

  
"The baby isn't bad - you made me this sick too." Ellana's voice had a teasing note, but Ashara did not pick up on it. Her  eyes instead grew wider, and her voice quavered.

  
"Then I was bad!"

  
The tears were not far behind for the poor little thing. He did not try to stop them, instead drawing her from where she sat next to Ellana to sit on his lap, curled up against his chest so that she was already safe, already held, by the time she truly started crying. Both of them murmured endearments to her until she was reassured at last that she was not bad, the baby was not bad, that everything would be fine in the end.

  
*

  
Solas had wondered if the same sense of awe would attend this second pregnancy as the first. He was wrong again, of course. It was just as surprising this time to watch her round the corner from constant illness and tired eyes to something softer, fuller. The first day that she called him over to see the new curve forming below her belly button, his heart still sped up. He still found it difficult to keep his hands off of her, by equal turns protective of her and allured by her body as it grew more responsive. How dearly he enjoyed it when Thom came to visit and took Ashara out for a day when Ellana was already five months along - how he could take his sweet time with her then, making her come with his magic and then his touch and then his tongue and then his cock, leaving her so boneless and content that he had to tell Thom she was sick and could not come to dinner that night and would say good-bye in the morning. They would have been in trouble in Elvhenan, where having too many children was frowned upon. He might not have been able to resist keeping her in such a state all the time.

  
Expecting a child was different with Ashara around, naturally. It went by more quickly, the days filled with all the business she brought them. She was fascinated in a clinical sense by the changes in her mother, especially when she could see and feel the baby move and kick, but indifferent to the thought of being an older sister. A natural born skeptic, she was suspicious of any stranger, and he couldn't deny that he worried she would not warm to her new sibling.

  
"Don't be ridiculous," Ellana said when he expressed his fear. "She won't like the idea at first, but she's going to be a fierce older sister. I challenge anyone to come near our youngest with her around."

  
Our youngest.

  
He had to check sometimes that it was all real. He had to wake in the middle of the night and brush his fingertips along Ellana's cheek until she sighed and shifted away, had to hold his hand to her belly until he felt the child within, had to tuck stray curls behind Ashara's ear so he could see her scrunch her nose in acknowledgement. He woke Ellana one night by accident in the midst of that ritual. Her gray eyes locked on his.

  
"Everything all right?"

  
"Of course, my heart."

  
"There's nothing you need to tell me?"

  
A natural fear, after what happened last time.

  
"Only that I love you."

  
She kept her eyes locked on his until she felt the sincerity of the words, then smiled.

  
"Ar lath ma," she said. "Come back to sleep. Don't you know you won't be getting much in three months?"

  
Three months. Three more months to enjoy it when it was just the three of them. Except that a month later, Solas was reading with Ashara when he heard a crash in the kitchen. He Fade stepped and saw her bent double over the table, hand pressed tight to her considerable stomach.

  
"What's wrong?" He asked. She just looked at him helplessly, and what came next was like a nightmare.

  
Last time they'd waited days for labor to begin, had talked their way through it, had been so on egg shells with each other after his deception. This time, instead of willing things to go faster, they willed them to slow down.

  
"Not yet, da'len," Ellana said over and over, as if she could slow the contractions down. "It's not time."

  
"Too bad," Mitha said brusquely. "This one has decided it is."

  
This time, he couldn't be there for every instant. He had to go out to Ashara, waiting outside with her stuffed nug clutched tight, furious with fear.

  
"The baby _is_ bad," she said, trying to hide the waver in her voice. "They're making Mamae scream."

  
He had to hide the waver in his own voice when he soothed her, told her everything would be just fine, that soon she would get to see Mamae and her new brother or sister, that their friends would come to visit.

  
He was still there when the child was born, for that terrifying instant when there was no sound, but then Mitha murmured and rubbed and they heard it - tiny and defiant.

  
Our youngest.

  
Our second daughter.

  
She was so _small_ .

  
And Ellana's skin was so ashen.

  
But she still squirmed the same when she was placed in his arms, he still immediately drank in the sight of her - darker than her sister but the tiny dense curls on her head were lighter, and she quieted in his hold much more easily than Ashara did - and he was still just as awed, just as lovestruck, as with their first.

  
But Ellana -

  
"That was a lot of blood, my dear," Mitha said, her hand to Ellana's forehead. "I know you feel weak, but you need to feed your little one, and keep her close to you. She is not so small by our standards, but she came early. She will not be as strong as your first."

  
Ellana nodded and held out her arms, but before Solas could place her in her arms, she shook her head.

  
"Take off the blanket. I need to feel her skin."

  
So they placed her on her bare breast and Ellana just held her there, and this time said nothing to her child. Just held her and kissed her over and over, following some instinct only she knew. And though the room still smelled like blood, and though this time the fear was not over yet, it was still a dream come true.

  
Saeris, they called her. One unending dream.

  
*

  
Ashara was unimpressed by Saeris, at first.

  
"You are very small," she said when Solas first sat beside her on their couch and held out the little sleeping bundle.

  
"You were only a little larger, da'vhenan."

  
"Is she da'vhenan now, too?"

  
"Yes. You both are."

  
She worried her bottom lip at that. "That is fine."

  
She was curious to see her mother feeding her sister, and once asked to touch her ("She is soft," she pronounced with a quick nod, as if confirming a theory she'd been working on), but a week in was still uninterested in holding her on her lap, or discussing her much at all, until one morning when Ellana followed up Ashara's complex discussion of why griffins were better than dragons (setting aside the fact that one was extinct, of course) with a comment.

  
"You have so much that you can teach Saeris, you know. I'm sure she would like to hear about griffins and dragons."

  
"Really?"

  
"Of course. You should tell her about them."

  
Ashara thought about it for a moment, looking down at the baby where she rested against Ellana.

  
"Maybe not griffins and dragons. Maybe nugs," she decided after a moment.

  
Solas took Saeris and placed her in her crib, then went back in to Ellana with her own breakfast. She'd remained in bed since Saeris's birth, weak and fevered by turns. She was recovering, but slowly, and he felt run ragged between caring for their daughters (a word that still sang in his heart) and caring for her. They'd scarcely had a moment alone together.

  
"My poor vhenan," she said, startling him awake. He hadn't even realized he'd fallen asleep, sitting up in a chair beside their bed. "Leliana will be here in a day or two, and then you can rest. It must be hard, having three ladies demanding all your attention."

  
"It is an honor, if an exhausting one."

  
"Do you care at all that we didn't have a son?" She asked. It was a foregone conclusion now, that Saeris would remain their youngest.

  
"What an odd question. Of course not."

  
"Some men do, you know."

  
"If anything, I am happy to have two daughters, to look for pieces of you in them as they grow. I think Saeris looks a great deal like you, so far."

  
Ellana hummed in response. "You should go and see what they are doing."

  
When Solas went into the nursery, he was startled by what he saw. Ashara was crouched next to Saeris's crib, engaged in soft, constant chatter, and as he drew closer, he could hear her:

  
"...and when you get bigger, you have to put your arms around Mamae's neck because she can't pick you up with just one arm. But you can always go to Papae instead. Mamae still does better voices when she reads, though." She noticed him then and stopped. When he said nothing, she went on, matter of factly. "I'm telling her all the things she needs to know."

  
It was just the exhaustion, he told himself. That's why his eyes stung with tears. Just the exhaustion. Not the overwhelming beauty of this life, these fragile lives, that would never have been if he had his way. He was a fortunate fool.  
*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed, and thanks for the kudos/comments/bookmarks so far! I will have a completely new one-shot involving both Saeris and Ashara up soon. I am also posting the sequel fic to "Body of Knowledge" sometime today or tomorrow (Eeek!). I am, as always, open to any requests!
> 
> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/)!


	14. Blow Us All Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyway, another “Hamilton” inspired entry for you today. For anyone who has read “Body of Knowledge” or its sequel, “Awakened,” I do still feel that Ashara went through a lot of what happens here in my canon story - it just isn’t shown, and obviously since Saeris doesn’t exist her role in it doesn’t either.

It was not often that Ellana left them on diplomatic missions - she much preferred to do things by letter, saying it was easier to hide her desire to strangle people in writing - but sometimes it was inevitable. Now that the girls were older - Ashara fifteen, Saeris ten - it was also not quite as trying to be left alone with them. That was what she reassured him when she left for Oruvun to meet with an Orlesian delegation.

Not that it was easy.

“Ashara, I will not ask again,” he said, not bothering to hide the edge in his voice as he called out into the garden. The morning sun was growing brighter every moment. “You need to come back inside and help get Saeris ready.”

“Coming,” she said, as she had before, though this time she did halt her staff work.

“You should invite Saeris to practice with you,” he said when she reentered.

“I don’t want to make her feel worse,” Ashara replied.

He breathed out through his nose. It had been a sticking spot, ever since their youngest turned eight - the age Ashara was when her magic first manifested. By the time Ashara was ten, she was already in her second year at the specialized school for mage children. Saeris, by contrast, still attended the school for children who either had no magic or had not shown signs of it yet. His eldest was right: she might not take it kindly if her older sister invited her to work with the staff they’d given her, even the unenchanted practice one.

He had his own tasks to accomplish that morning, of course - some menial, some more difficult - so he did not go to check on their progress until he hear footsteps behind him and turned to see Saeris, dressed now but her red curls still in wild disorder around her head.

“Papae, you said Ashara would braid my hair, but she is writing some report instead. Will you do it?”

Fenhedis. He was torn between going and scolding Ashara immediately and attending to Saeris. He settled on the youngest.

“Very well, da’vhenan. Come here.”

When she settled into his lap, he was grateful, as he often was, to have a child who was still young enough for such small joys. She still aimlessly swung her legs and chattered about what they had learned about the history of the Blights the day before in school, still needed him to carefully plait her curls to keep them out of her face. He could still hug her close when he was done and kiss her head and send her on her way.

“Go wait by the door. Ashara will walk you to school.”

Of course, that was when Ashara Fade-stepped into the room in a sudden flash.

“I can’t take her. I forgot I had a report on proper application of nullification spells and lightning spells and Yara has the rest of the notes from the day that I missed and I need to meet her before our first class begins and -”

“Did I not ask you last night if you had anything more important to do than reading the latest of Varric’s serials?”

“Yes - but - Papae, I have to go now!” And then she darted out with another burst of energy, and was gone.

“Will Ashara be in trouble later?” Saeris asked, innocently.

“Yes.” He pushed down the urge to go after her immediately - foolish, stubborn child. “Now then. I suppose we will walk together.”

Of course, Saeris was just old enough now that they did not hold hands as they walked, but it was still a pleasant morning (even if it would make him late for his own obligations). Saeris, like her father, was quite comfortable with silence, and though they spoke little on their journey it was still companionable. And, unlike her sister, Saeris still embraced him before she disappeared inside with her classmates. As he returned home he reminded himself to speak to her again that evening, to remind her that it was perfectly normal for her to have no sign of magic yet - some children were as old as thirteen, fourteen when they joined the classes at Ashara’s school - but in the business of his day he lost track of his thoughts on the two of them. It wasn’t until that evening when he returned home and saw the two of them seated in the living room - Ashara staring into space and Saeris carefully arranging a series of drawings that she had made - that he remembered.

“Ashara, I don’t know why you are sitting here staring off at nothing. After this morning, I expect to see you in your room -”

“Fine.” Then she was up and gone. Odd. A curt response from his gregarious eldest child. Not to mention an acquiescent one. Not a single argument. He’d need to speak with her later. For now, he turned his attention to Saeris, who had abandoned her drawings and was now staring intently at her hand.

“How was your day, Saeris?”

“Shhh.”

Ah. She was trying to perform magic, as she often did. Her focus was singular, impressive for a child her age. She hardly moved a muscle. Solas held his own breath. Then, after another minute, she sighed and slumped onto the floor.

“Why doesn’t it work?”

“It is hard to say, fenor. No one knows quite why mages come into their powers when they do. It is often a moment of great emotion that unlocks it. It was quite unusual that your sister simply found hers as she did, sitting on the floor in her room. Be patient, and your moment will come.”

It didn’t seem to reassure her the way he thought it would. Her eyebrows remained furrowed over her gray eyes. She looked so much more like her mother than Ashara, who remained a mixture between the two of them. Solas could imagine Saeris when she was older, the way he’d come into a room and think it was his heart who stood there only to find it was his daughter (and how that would break his heart, someday, if they did not fix the problem they were beginning to suspect).

There was no time for that thought now. He had to go see what was happening with Ashara.

She was sitting at her desk, looking out the window at the garden, pointed chin clasped in her hand. She didn't stir at the sound of his knock. It was not like her to react like this to being punished - this had to be something else.

“Ashara - is something the matter?”

She sighed and slumped down, resting her head on her folded arms.

“I failed my practical test with lightning today.”

“There is no shame in that. We all have our strengths and weaknesses.”

“There's shame in it when you’re the Dread Wolf’s daughter.”

Not this again.

It was not easy, being the child of someone with such - notoriety. This would not be the first time someone threw it in her face.

“You know that isn’t true.”

“But the things they say - about you, about Mamae -”

“Are irrelevant. Do not let them affect you. You are my daughter, but you do not need to bear the weight of my legacy. Nothing would hurt me more than to know that you were doing so.”

Another unsatisfying answer, apparently. All it earned him was another sigh, and an apology for her lack of preparedness that morning. It would appear neither of his daughters were in a place to be comforted that evening. He wished for Ellana then, for her insight into what they were thinking or feeling. He spoke to her that night in the Fade, and she just shook her head.

“What Saeris needs to hear from you isn’t that it's normal for it to take this long - it's that you will love her the same if it never happens.’’

“I would have thought that obvious.”

“It isn’t. Not to her. Trust me as the other non-mage in the family - between you and Ashara, it can seem like magic is the only thing that matters.”

“That is absurd.”

“Solas.” Her voice had that gentle warning note. He was being resistant. He needed to listen.

“Very well. I will reassure her.”

“As for Ashara… even I truly don’t know. You know how she takes everything to heart. I don’t know that we can teach her not to.”

“I wish she did not suffer because of us. Of me.”

“It’s not such a unique experience. In the clan, I was always ‘the child of the flat ears,’ even after my parents were gone, even though I was born and raised in the clan. I just learned to seek out those who saw me as more.”

She was so clear-eyed. It was one of the things he loved about her more and more as the years went on. He could never stop himself from second-guessing, re-analyzing. She had learned by now to stop, take stock, and make the decision that needed to be made.

“I miss you,” he said, touching her cheek.

“I miss you,” she replied. “I’ll be home soon.”

*

The next day went much smoother. The morning was filled with the quiet chatter of Ashara and Saeris talking about their dreams (apparently Ashara had taken her to see a memory she’d found), helping each other get ready, and then heading out the door. He had more than enough time to complete the necessary reports and correspondence. Some of it was for Ellana - he made a mental note to speak to her that night about it. Of course, a quiet morning meant it had to be an eventful afternoon.

He was able to spend much of the day in the study, which was why he was home to hear the door fly open and hit the wall, so loud he leapt up. He didn’t have long to wait in suspense. Ashara appeared quickly before him.

“What’s wrong?” He asked.

“I got in a fight. Just with words. But Nellas started it! He said the most awful things about our family - about you -”

His heart sank.

“What did I tell you yesterday? My legacy is not yours to bear. Let them say whatever they will.”

Saeris appeared in the door at that point. She looked up at her sister, imploringly.

“See?” She said. “Don't be angry.”

“I am proud to be your daughter. I refuse to act otherwise.” Ashara began to pace. “And what’s even worse is that he keeps besting me at our practical tests with lightning. Today he said he could just zap me whenever he wanted, if I tried to defend you. He said even my barriers wouldn't be good enough to stop him. What good is it for me to be the daughter of the last of the Evanuris if I can't even make him stop?”

This was never what he wanted. This was the exact thing he feared, even when she was still a tiny bundle in his arms, precious and new. That no matter what she did, who she was, his legacy what cast a longer shadow. She was a fiercely intelligent scholar, an accomplished mage (even if her barriers did leave something to be desired), a protective older sister - but to some people, she would never be more than Fen’Harel’s daughter.

“I can't say anything I have not said before, da’vhenan. This is not your burden to bear. Perhaps you could ask for another class, so you don't have to see this Nellas?”

“No. I don't want to.”

How was her everlasting stubbornness not the thing people noticed the most?

“Then I suggest you meditate for a while. Find your center again. Do not let him move you from it.”

He hadn't necessarily meant for her to do it there, but she settled onto the couch, slumping down at first, until Saeris went and got the beads they both used for practice and began helping her count. He let himself be lulled by her soft voice (still so beautifully childish) until he was meditative too, the words flowing from his quill as he worked out his theories on the Veil, on how it could be drawn out of Ellana, so they would never have to tell the two girls kneeling so close their knees touched that they could lose their mother. He was so lost in the thought that Ashara’s next question came as a little bit of a surprise.

“If Nellas did try to hit me with lightning, and my barrier didn’t hold - what could I do?”

“The power of the storm is unique amongst the elements - it is the only element that truly lives within all of us. As a mage, you should be able to direct the lightning through your mana, through your body, and safely away. That would be the wisest option, if it ever did escalate to a real conflict. Not that it will, yes?”

“Of course not.”

Saeris was watching them closely, he realized, probably hanging on his every word about lightning, and he remembered Ellana’s words. He still had not taken her aside yet. When Ashara drifted out of the room a minute later, he called to her, and she came to his side.

“You are very good at meditating now, Saeris. I hope you do not only do it to try and help connect with the powers of the Fade.”

“It will help though, won’t it?” She asked, earnest, wide-eyed.

“It could. But - Saeris - you do know that it won't matter to me or to Mamae or to Ashara if it doesn't, right? If you are not a mage?”

“But I will be, won't I?”

“I don't know. I can't say. But I will love you the same either way. Exactly the same.”

He reached out and tried to take both her hands but only managed to get one before she’d turned partially away.

“But I want to be one. All the things you and Ashara say, and all the things you do...”

“Your mother can't do any of those things. She has lived a full and happy life nonetheless. It is the same with many of your aunts and uncles, too. Most of them, in fact.”

She pulled gently away from him and played with her beads. His own heart dropped further.

“It could still happen, Saeris. I am not saying it won't. I simply don't want you to worry that you will be any less my daughter if it doesn't.”

She gave him a slight nod, but did not meet his eyes. A little later, she slipped out of the room on quiet feet, and for a while the silence sat heavy in his chest. But then it was time for dinner, and there was the happy clatter of plates, and his daughters rhyming as many words as they could think of as quick as they could in Elvhen and in Trade, and arguing over who got the last chocolate cake for dessert, and the weight lifted.

*

The next day did not contain an eventful morning or afternoon. It was an eventful evening. An evening he would try to forget for as long as he lived.

It wasn't unusual for Ashara and Saeris to come home at different times. The city was a safe place, as far as cities went. Sometimes they went down to the market or to a friend’s house. As long as they were home before the sun was down, he did not worry.

It was sunset when the urgent knock came at his door. Someone he didn't know.

“Ser - there has been an incident with one of your daughters. I need you to come to the healer’s.”

He’d heard many dire things in his life, and no matter how frightening or horrifying or upsetting they’d been, he’d known somewhere in his mind how to react. This time there was nothing but a roar of fear like a massive wave. He couldn't even make himself speak until they were walking.

“Which daughter?”

“Your eldest.”

“Is she alright?”

“Only the healer can say.”

“What happened?”

“A fight with another mage. He struck her with lightning.”

No.

“Her mother -” Ellana. He hadn't spoken to her the night before. She didn't even know that Ashara had already been in a verbal fight -

“Ambassador Lavellan has been sent for. She travels here by eluvian even now.”

“And my younger daughter?”

“She is waiting for you there.”

The rest of the journey was short. He warped the Fade around him to make it shorter but couldn't warp the sickness out of his gut. This was not real. Ashara couldn't be taken from them. The world could not take her smile, or her curiosity - it could not take his firstborn child because he would not allow that world to exist - it was some dream - she was still ambling about their house on unsteady legs, she still had soft childish cheeks, she was not lying in some healer’s bed barely alive -

It was Saeris he saw first. Saeris who ran to him, who wrapped her arms around him and clung tightly, burying her head in his chest. He returned the embrace, cradling the back of her head just to assure himself that she was safe and whole. There was naked fear in her eyes when he stepped back.

“I need to see your sister.”

She nodded and then steadied herself with a breath. The fear receded. She pointed to the nearby room.

He was assaulted by the smell of elfroot and dawn lotus. The first thing he saw were the branching white lines covering Ashara’s back where it was turned to him. Nellas had struck her with lightning. With considerable power. She could have died - she was not moving now -

“She is stable,” said the attendant. The healer was busy, magic flowing from his palms.

“How bad was it?”

“We believe it stopped her heart. At least it should have. By the time we got to her it was beating, though how we don’t know - for now the healer is trying to heal the rest of the damage to her body.”

He didn't need them to tell him the risks. Nerve damage, damage to her mind, decreased mobility and dexterity - and if her heart had stopped - even if it was beating now - how much damage had been done?

“Where is she? Where is my daughter?”

Ellana, at his side, rushing straight past the healer to the other side of the bed so she could see Ashara’s face and rest her hand on it.

“My sweet one - who did this?”

“Your younger daughter knows better than any of us, but we can't get her to speak to us. Apparently the other mage fled the scene of the fight,” the attendant said. “Please, Ambassador - the healer needs his space.”

Ellana came back around. Saeris was in the door now. Ellana drew her close.

“Are you alright, da’asha? What happened to your sister? They said said it was some kind of fight but who?”

Saeris shook her head.

“I believe it was a boy named Nellas in her class,” Solas said, though he could not turn to look at Ellana. He could not take his eyes off his daughter. “She exchanged heated words with him yesterday. I tried to tell her how to redirect the lightning but it must not have worked -”

“You knew? You knew she was having problems with him and all you did was tell her how to redirect his attack if he came after her?” Her voice grew louder and louder.

“Ambassador, please do not shout.”

Ellana was quiet after that.

It was a long, long evening. Saeris still said nothing. She alternated between hovering close to one of them, seeking the comfort of touch, and then drawing away, standing up straight and tall - like she knew this was a moment when she needed to grow up. Solas hated those moments when she stepped away. He wanted nothing more in that moment than for her to be only a child with his arms wrapped around her, so he could maintain the illusion that he could protect her.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” Ellana said later, when the healers had gone. “About shouting. I’m sure you did more than just tell her what to do.”

“I did. I told her to change classes, reassured her that she did not have to defend me to anyone - but there must have been more I could have done. This was because of me. Because she's my daughter. Because she stubbornly refused to stop defending me to that - fool.”

“Fool? He’s worse than a fool. I’ll skin him alive if she's hurt. Slowly.”

“Is he a fool to hate me, after all I’ve done?”

Ellana didn’t have anything to say to that. Saeris, however, did.

“It wasn't because of you, Papae. It was because of me. She was going to listen. He was following us and saying things about you. She kept ignoring him. Then - then he pointed at me and said that it was bad enough there was one daughter of the Dread Wolf in the world. Why did there have to be a second one who wasn't even a mage? He said I was useless. That I shouldn't have been born. That - that was when the fight started.”

Her voice was small by the end of her story, and she was looking down, shoulders curled, like she wanted to disappear into herself.

“This is not your fault, Saeris,” Ellana said at once. “Not at all. Do you understand?”

She made the smallest of nods.

They didn’t speak for a while after that, instead sleeping fitfully while they waited for the sleeping draught the healer gave Ashara to wear off. Every time Solas slept deeply enough to enter the Fade it was a place of mockery - harsh, echoing laughter, and the deep burn of shame.

It was nearly morning when he woke to see Saeris standing before him. Ellana was still asleep, her head pillowed on his lap. Saeris was breathing quickly, clearly agitated, and his eyes flew to Ashara - but she was still fast asleep.

“What is it, Saeris?” he asked.

“I don't want to be a mage anymore,” she said. Her little fists were clenched tight.

“And maybe you won't be. You cannot control it either way. It will -”

“No! I don't want to!”

Saeris never interrupted. Rarely raised her voice. And that was when Solas felt it - the power, the glow of it around her. His pulse quickened. He took one of her clenched fists and held it until she slowly let it unfurl and saw the green, glowing light. Spirit magic. Cool and refreshing.

“Saeris - when Ashara fell, when the lightning hit her - did this happen?”

“Yes. Except more of it. I felt it all rush out of me.”

Then the lightning did stop Ashara’s heart. It was Saeris who restarted it.

“Fenor, you saved your sister. You saved her with this. It is a gift. You should be proud. I am proud.”

“But now it will happen to me too. They will judge me for being your daughter. I don't want that. I want to be proud but I don't want to be in danger.”

After the way he felt when the stranger came to his door and said one of his daughters was hurt, Solas didn’t think he could feel his heart break further. He was wrong. He would never forget the day Ashara first discovered the truth of his legacy, how she tried to flee the house and never return. Saeris always seemed to just know, already. Perhaps Ashara had told her, perhaps it was simply her nature that when she found out she dealt with it quietly, in her own way. Perhaps it was because she still attended the non-mage school, where most of the students were children of former city elves and slaves freed by his actions, so she rarely faced the same scrutiny that her sister did. That would certainly change now. The mage school had its share of children whose parents were awakened Elvhen, or Dalish keepers who still spoke of him as the lone hunter who killed the gods. He wanted to tell her that it would never happen - that she could have the pride and not the danger - but he knew she was old enough for the real answer.

“People will speak ill of me, of your mother, even of your sister, even of you, whether you are a mage or not. I am sorry I cannot change that for either of you. All any of us can choose is how we respond to what they say. How we let it make us feel. Do you know what has always impressed me about you, da’vhenan?”

She shook her head.

“You, even more so than your sister, have always been so grounded. Like a tree with deep roots. You know who you are. Nothing anyone else can say can take that, mage or no.”

She nodded, and he could see that some of the tension had ebbed from her shoulders. The green light still flickered in her palms, and for a little while he held them, encouraged her to explore, to see what she could do with the energy it created. No real spells - just the gentle, playful discovery of this new side of herself. It woke Ellana eventually, and though she smiled at the green light that surrounded them, she rose and went to Ashara’s side.

“She should wake up soon. Does she seem alright to you?”

When Solas let his own healing magic flow over Ashara, Saeris joined him, a tentative exploration alongside his own, just little flickers of spirit that sparked along her sister’s skin. It was what made her stir and open her eyes.

“What happened?” She asked blearily, her voice thick with sleep.

“I’ll get the healer!” Saeris said, and darted away.

“What happened is that you have given me at least three new grey hairs, Ashara. Three. What were you thinking?” Ellana’s words were sharp but her voice was soft as she gripped Ashara’s hand.

Ashara didn’t have a chance to answer before the healer arrived and there was the bustle of testing her reflexes, her pain, her own magic. As far as they could tell, there was no lasting damage, though part of the scar would remain, and she was still terribly sore for now.

“Tell me you at least singed this Nellas in return,” Ellana said when they’d gone.

“A little. Where is that asshole, anyway?”

“Ashara!” Solas shot a look at Ellana after he said it, displeased with her own comments on the matter.

“What?” Ashara replied. “He probably still thinks he can talk about my sister that way. I’m going to show him otherwise.”

“No.” Saeris frowned. “I want you here with us. I don't care what someone else says. The guards will find him.”

“I guess for your sake, then… we let him live.”

Solas suspected it would be like that for a long time to come. Ashara the brash, passionate public defender of their family, and Saeris the quiet resistance behind her, the grounding force. Each of them would find their own ways, in time, to deal with what people said. He would find his own way to live with the guilt it caused him. For now, there was work to do. Other lessons to teach. Triumphs and failures to experience. Life as a father as it unfolded in all its quick-moving, ever-changing splendor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When he gave me the idea for this AU, my husband wanted me to actually kill off Ashara in this chapter since that’s what happens to Hamilton’s son. Thankfully, I am not as cruel as he is :)
> 
> Well, that's all I initially had planned for these AUs/deleted scenes! I’ll be posting an update to “Awakened” next weekend, hopefully. I also have a few ideas kicking around to add here: some more implied smut, mainly from “the World Turned Upside Down” but also potentially from “Awakened” as I already removed a Solavellan smut scene I felt uncertain about, as well as potentially the wedding from “Body of Knowledge” retold from either Solas or Ellana’s POV… and maybe something from Ellana’s POV about both Ashara and Saeris that falls after this incident. If there’s anything that strikes your fancy, or something you’d personally like to see, I am all ears! Thanks for reading/leaving kudos/comments/etc!
> 
> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/)!


	15. Helpless (Reprise)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so there is no real reprise of “Helpless” (other than the brief ones in various songs), but this calls back to some of my chapter by the same name in “The World Turned Upside Down,” so I figured the title worked. 
> 
> This takes place around 3 years after the last chapter - around a year before the ending of "Body of Knowledge" and the beginning of "Awakened."
> 
> Shout out to valyrias, who asked for this one, and Kinako, who first encouraged me to keep writing about the world in which both daughters exist! If you haven't read their stuff… what are you doing here reading mine??? Go read it now!

“Mamae, when did you know that you were in love with Papae?”

Saeris asked her mother the question out of the blue while they were sitting together in their garden at home. Not only was it not what they had been talking about a few minutes earlier -the templar-mage conflict, which she’d just learned about in school - but it was not the sort of thing Saeris had ever asked before. She was thirteen now - the same age Ashara was when she first came home and declared that there was a handsome boy in her class, but that he kept casting frost when he meant to use fire, and who does that?

Ellana put down her book and moved to sit on the same bench as Saeris. Her older sister enjoyed theoretical questions, but Saeris never asked something without a purpose. Something was going on.

“Well, it's a bit of a complicated question. Do you mean when I first knew I was attracted to him? When I knew that the way I felt about him was different than the way I’d felt before? When I knew I wanted to be with him forever? Those are all different feelings - or they can be.”

Saeris twisted one of her curls tightly around her finger. She was nervous. “All of those?” she asked.

“I first knew I was attracted to him when we were in the Hinterlands, exploring a cave in search of Elvhen artifacts. Watching him use his magic - I was entranced.”

She smiled a small smile. “And - when you knew it was different?”

Ellana leaned back, thinking. It all felt so long ago. She’d been a different person, in a different world. So many other things were happening at the time.

“I knew it was different when I wanted more days with him in them than days without him. I’d never felt that before. And when seeing him smile made me happier than when I was smiling myself.”

“But - was there an exact moment?”

Ellana thought about it. She thought about the reassurance of the barriers he wove around her - always starting with her, never with anyone else, not even when it was Cassandra or Thom or Bull who was in the thick of it - of the stories he wove on nights when she lay awake seeing the faces of the dead - of the council he gave her whenever she needed it most. Of the way her feet always directed her to the cabin near the apothecary, how her heart would speed up at the sight of him standing there, staring at the Breach. The smell of his paints in the rotunda at Skyhold. Had there really been a single moment?

“I suppose - at the Winter Palace. It was such an awful night. I was worried and angry and tired, and every time I saw him I felt lighter. I’d never seen him smile the way he did when we danced at the end of the night. It made everything else worth it. We were - together by then. But that was when I knew I wanted to be with him forever.”

It didn't seem to be the answer Saeris wanted. She was frowning.

“What is this about, da’asha?” Ellana asked.

“There’s - a girl in my class, and she’s very pretty, and - I like her smile - and when we walk home together - I just wanted to know if that’s what it feels like. Love.”

Ellana couldn't help but smile. Of course Saeris would ask this - careful, deliberate Saeris, who didn’t stop holding someone’s hand in public until Ellana reassured her that she was old enough to walk on her own.

“It could be. Why do you sound so worried?”

“Because I have to be sure. I want to ask her to come to see the festival in the square tomorrow. There’s going to be dancing and - I don’t want to dance with anyone else. Can I? Ashara said she’d come.”

So Ashara already knew about this. Interesting.

“I don't see why not. We should tell your father, though. What’s her name?”

“Léonie.”

“That’s a pretty name. Is her family Orlesian?”

“Mamae,” she said, dragging out the final syllable.

“What? Am I not allowed to be curious?”

Saeris dragged her feet in the dirt. “She said they used to live in the alienage in Montsimmard. They came here when she was little. She likes it better here than in Orlais.”

“I’d imagine so. I hope I get to meet her.”

“Mamae…” Dragged out again.

“Fine! I won’t bother you any more.” She wrapped her arms tight around her youngest and kissed the crown of her head, and though Saeris squirmed away, she was smiling when she broke free.

“You feel well today, right?” She asked.

Ellana’s chest tightened. Why couldn't this have been an ordinary afternoon, with no thought of death or disease?

“Yes, love,” she lied.

*

“I want to know more about this girl,” Solas said when Ellana told him that night, after both their daughters had gone to bed.

“I told you what she told me.”

“She’s very young for this. I’m not certain you should have said yes.”

“They’re just going to the square - and you know Ashara won't let them out of her sight. Saeris never asks for something unless she really wants it, and has thought carefully about it.”

“You’re right.”

Ellana rose to refill her glass of wine. The warm relaxation it brought would hopefully be enough to dull her aches and pains. Maybe she wouldn’t need magic to sleep that night.

“She asked me how I knew I loved you, and when,” she said when she returned to her seat beside him. “It was interesting to consider. I don’t think I ever asked you that question.”

Solas responded at once. “When Haven fell. I’d been able to deny it up to that point. But seeing that mountain come down… I didn’t care about the Anchor. I didn’t care about the town below or the people beside me. I only wanted to see you walk out of the snow.”

She shifted so she could rest her feet in his lap, glad for the point of contact.

“Bit of a grim story,” she said. “I told her it was Halamshiral. Really it was a hundred different moments - but as I thought about it - so many of them involved death and pain. Things Saeris wouldn’t understand. Things I never want her to understand.”

Solas’s hand dropped to her leg.

“I wish we had a simpler story to tell them.”

“So do I. But it’s still ours. It still leads to this - to them.”

He gestured to her, and she turned around so she could settle against him, back to chest. He pressed her close, and Ellana let her eyes slide closed as she relaxed into the embrace.

“Papae, do you know where my journal is? I thought it was in my room but it’s not.”

So Ashara hadn’t gone to bed. She was standing in the hallway, dressed for sleep, her hair carefully wrapped under a silk scarf, but with one of her giant tomes on Fade theory balanced precariously in her hands. She wasn’t even looking up.

“I have not seen it since you showed me your notes this afternoon. You took it with you,” he replied, his voice rumbling pleasantly through his chest and Ellana’s back. Ashara made an annoyed sound and turned to go, still without ever looking up.

“Ashara, why are you awake?” Ellana called after her. She turned back and looked up, and took in their cozy embrace with a start.

“Oh - I’m sorry - I just - while I was trying to sleep I had a thought and then I wanted to check something and now I need to write it down before I can sleep -”

“I warned you about this,” Ellana said. “I’ll keep all of your books out here if they’re keeping you from sleeping.”

“I would just come out here and get them when you went to bed,” she muttered. She was already looking at the book again. Ellana rolled her eyes. It wasn’t worth fighting about.

“I heard about Léonie from Saeris this afternoon,” she said.

“Oh - her? That’s been going on for weeks. Well, Saeris has been pining for her for weeks. I finally introduced them two days ago. She was never going to do it on her own.”

“And you never thought to tell us?” Solas asked.

“Not my place,” Ashara said absently, marking a page and then going to the next one.

Though she was comfortable in Solas’s arms, and still pleasantly buzzing with the effects of the wine, Ellana felt worry begin to worm its way into her calm. She knew some of Ashara’s obsession was normal. She was preparing for her final examinations - most of her peers were also staying up late to do so. If only her project wasn’t focused on the Veil - on the remaining energy of the Anchor - on a problem she could never hope to solve. On saving her mother’s life.

“Are you bringing anyone with you tomorrow?” Ellana asked.

It had been months, she realized, since Ashara mentioned having an interest in anyone. No - a year. It had been at least a year. There was never anyone serious before that, but now and then she would mention the names of a boy with a little smile on her face, or say she was going out with a group of friends both male and female, which never failed to leave them both a little on edge as they waited for her to return. But in the last year? Nothing.

“No,” Ashara said, turning to go again. “Good night.”

“Good night,” she said in response. Then she sighed. Solas tightened his arms around her.

“Perhaps we should go with them tomorrow,” he said.

“No,” Ellana said immediately. “Saeris would be mortified. Poor Ashara still hasn’t recovered from the shock of you interrogating that boy you saw her with in town one day.”

“Asking simple questions is not an interrogation. In any case, Ashara has been distracted lately. I only fear that her attention will wander, and that Saeris and this Léonie will be left alone.”

“Ashara wouldn’t do that.”

Solas left it at that, choosing instead to trail his fingers up and down her arm. “Were you well today?” He asked.

“Yes,” Ellana lied again.

*

Ellana had to admit that it was hard to resist the temptation to stop by the festival the next day. It was, after all, a beautiful one - the trees and flowers surrounding the square in full bloom, the smell of the food from all over Thedas, the dances both ancient and new - but she knew it could not end well. If it was Ashara’s special occasion, she would be furious - but Saeris would, in fact, be so embarrassed that they would never be able to speak of it again. And this was the first time she expressed interest in anyone - Ellana wanted that channel to remain open between them. For however long it could, before -

No. It was springtime, and everything was new and green and growing, and there was no time for such thoughts.

Solas, to his credit, buried himself in his own research, and then in painting, though his near total silence gave away exactly how preoccupied he was. He looked up immediately when the front door opened and Saeris bounded in, Ashara not far behind.

“Well?” Ellana asked, though she was already smiling.

“She held my hand,” Saeris said, returning the smile. “And we shared Orlesian chocolates. Her mother’s are better, though. She said so.”

“That sounds like a wonderful time,” Ellana said. Saeris nodded, then quickly embraced first her mother, then her father, then ran back to hug her sister, before disappearing into her room.

“It was very sweet,” Ashara said with a smile of her own. “And before you ask, Papae, Léonie was a perfect lady. She was polite and she laughed at everything Saeris said. Do you have any other burning questions you need to ask?”

“You’re becoming too glib. It doesn’t suit you,” Solas said with a frown.

“Ir abelas,” she said, softening at once. She followed Saeris’s pattern, first embracing her mother, and then her father, and then disappearing into the room she shared with her sister.

“Well?” Ellana said, turning to Solas. He just sighed and turned back to his painting. “Oh, vhenan. Be happy for her.”

“I’m trying to,” he said. “She’s just so young - and yet not so young as she was. It is a problem as old as time. I have no solution for it.”

She stood behind him and wrapped her arm around his waist so she could kiss his neck. Then she went to their own room, pausing on her way to press an ear to her daughters’ room, the better to hear their soft excited voices. A sweetness she could take to bed with her to counter the sour ache in her bones.

*

It lasted all of a week. Saeris’s happy sighs, the letters she brought home with her and read over and over. (Ashara said she got a glimpse of them - that they were sweet, innocent things.) She was more talkative than usual, though of course she stuttered whenever they mentioned the reason for it. Ellana was both delighted and curious. She realized now that she had never quite seen Ashara in the same state over someone. She wondered why. Solas said little on the subject. Like he was holding his breath for what they knew would come.

Ashara was nearly incapable of hiding what she was thinking or feeling at a given moment; Saeris, not so. She could hide a thought away inside herself for days and days - sometimes didn’t even confess when she was feeling unwell. Ellana knew logically that this little romance couldn’t last, but she’d half expected that she wouldn’t know when it ended, that it would be something else Saeris kept tucked safely inside until she was ready to share it. Instead, she came home with red-rimmed eyes and wrapped herself around her mother like that embrace was the only thing that could hold her down to earth.

“What is it, da’vhenan?” Ellana asked, stroking her hair, though she already knew.

“Léonie kissed another girl after school today,” Ashara said, and the words made Saeris hold her mother even tighter. “She said it was just a dare, but… well, we came straight home, because I was starting to feel like I might have to hit her.”

“Oh, Saeris. I’m so sorry she did that to you.”

Saeris said something muffled in reply.

“I can’t hear you, love. Say it again.”

“But - I should forgive her? That’s what I should do if I love her, right? Like how you forgave Papae?”

Ellana felt suddenly dizzy. Solas had given her a draught to prevent the pain earlier, before leaving. Was it wearing off?

“What?”

Saeris looked up at last, but didn’t loosen her hold. “That’s what you do when someone you love hurts you, right? You forgive them? I just - why does it hurt so?”

Ellana found it hard to breathe now. She tried gently to get Saeris to loosen her hold.

“Saeris - that was very different. Your father and I.”

“Is it?” Ashara asked. Her eyebrows were furrowed in concentration, like this was a moment that needed committing to memory.

“It is,” she said, though she was sick with a sudden realization. If one of her daughters had been in the position she was in all those years ago - she would have begged them not to forgive him. But he was their father, her mate in practice if not yet officially - and she had never once regretted forgiving him. Yet if she had her way - neither of them would ever feel what she felt. The pain. The betrayal. The fear that still surfaced every now and then, when he looked far away, and said nothing was on his mind. What was there to say to express all of that?

“We - we were much older. And we were truly in love. And it was - complicated.”

“So what I feel - it isn’t love?” Saeris had pulled away now, back into herself.

“It might be. Just not the same kind of love. It shouldn’t hurt you this much. The people who love you shouldn’t hurt you the way Léonie did. You shouldn’t be left feeling helpless like this.”

Except wasn’t that the feeling that accompanied those hundreds of moments they spoke of the week before? There was a reason they called it falling - the terror and the joy intertwined, like the first moment you leapt into a river.

Saeris wiped her eyes and took a sniffling breath. She was growing more distant by the moment. Soon she would retreat to her room, and no power on earth would move her to speak of this again until she was ready.

“It’s your choice, Saeris,” Ellana said finally. “Whether or not to forgive her. But if I could choose for you - I only want you to feel the happiness of love. Not the pain.”

Saeris nodded and wiped her eyes again, and before she could leave Ellana rested her hand on her cheek and leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. Ashara waited a moment after her sister was gone, still watching their mother carefully.

“Was it worth it?” She asked.

Ellana took in the sight of her. Nearly grown now. She looked at the crumb-covered dishes that had been left on a table. The dust in a corner. The murals on the walls. The life that had soaked into their little house over the years.

“Of course,” Ellana said.

Ashara didn’t seem satisfied with the answer. Her expression didn’t clear. This was not the last time she would bring it up, Ellana knew. Perhaps she was old enough to hear more - to hear the full truth of what it was like to have that kind of love. But the time wasn’t now, and so she disappeared into their room as well.

*

When Solas came home, Saeris told him on her own what had happened. His eyes were like stormclouds when she was done.

“She was never good enough, then,” he said. “No one who was good enough would treat you that way. You should not forgive her - or anyone else who behaves so.”

Saeris took in the words with downcast eyes. Ashara watched her father closely, perhaps replaying their earlier conversation as she drummed her fingers on the table. Ellana said nothing. In fact, she spoke little for the rest of the night, until both girls had gone to bed.

“You are more troubled than I thought you would be by this,” Solas said, when they were sitting in their own bed. “You seemed so nonchalant about this, though you knew how it had to end.”

“I will never be nonchalant when one of our daughters is in pain,” she said tartly. Solas rested a hand on her thigh - an unspoken apology. “She assumed she should forgive Léonie, Solas. Because I forgave you. She thought that’s what love was. Letting people hurt you, and then forgiving them. I didn’t know what to say.”

“I know exactly what to say,” he replied. “If someone like me - someone with lies in their heart - ever came near either of them… I would tear that person limb from limb. I would cast them into the Void. They deserve so much more. As did you.”

“That’s not how I feel. That’s never how I’ve felt. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.” She turned at last to look at him. Into the same blue eyes that once made her heart soar across a ballroom, no matter how much chaos and fear surrounded her - and felt her heart lift. She tried to speak but found there were no words for that feeling, not really. It was a feeling she wanted both of her daughters to have some day. Maybe that meant it had to come with pain. Maybe she could protect them from it for as long as she could - until she could no longer protect them from anything.

She leaned forward and kissed him, and he sank gratefully into her, lips soft against her own.

“Have I thanked you recently for loving a broken old fool, even when you should not have?” He said when he drew back.

“No.”

“Thank you,” he said. And then again. “Thank you.”

And then again and again, but this time with no words, until Ellana thought no more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all for now! Soon I'll be posting a small multi-chapter AU of "Awakened" that includes Saeris. As always, thanks for reading/leaving kudos/commenting.
> 
> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/)!


	16. Saeris Alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At last! Here is the AU of ["Awakened"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10080125/chapters/22465256) I promised a while back. I am currently envisioning it as a three-part “mini-series.”
> 
> It is worth noting that “Awakened” itself is, as of today, 93,000 words and counting. I will not be rewriting the entire thing to include Saeris, but will instead rewrite the parts that I think are the most different because of her existence. If you have not read “Awakened,” I will provide notes explaining characters/events that take place in the original version.
> 
> Relevant notes: in case it is unclear, the lingering energy of the Anchor has been slowly poisoning/killing Ellana for around four years as of the beginning of this section, though they didn't tell their daughters about it for a year. Solas and Ashara have searched furiously for a cure, to no avail. Ellana and Solas decided to finally get married, mainly to have an excuse to see all their friends again, and held the wedding at Skyhold. This chapter begins a year after the events in the previous chapter (Saeris’s crush, etc.).
> 
> Random musical nerd note: the titles of this AU are inspired by the musical “Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812.”

“I can't believe you’re going.”

Ashara couldn't help but wince at the tone of Saeris’s words, even if she couldn't see her little sister’s face. She surveyed the haphazardly arranged clothes on her bed once more. Would she need anything more formal than what she already laid out? What if Dorian took her to parties? Then again, wouldn't she want something that suited Tevene fashion?

“Sister.”

Now Saeris’s voice had softened a bit, turning pleading, like when she used to beg for Ashara’s help stealing sweets from the high cupboards at home, or when she wanted Ashara to hold still for a sketch. Ashara didn't want to turn and see the look that would match it - bright gray eyes, lips pulled tight together. Even at fourteen, Saeris remained shorter than Ashara, slighter in build, perhaps because she was born early, perhaps because she took after their mother so much. So Ashara would be looking down at her if she turned, and that would make her look small and fragile and it might just be enough to break her resolve.

Footwraps. She needed to pack more of those. Or would people judge her for going barefoot? Should she pack the human shoes she wore occasionally in Orlais?

Saeris crossed the room and sat down on the bed, her legs pressed tight together, her shoulders hunched forward. She was still looking up though. Up into Ashara’s eyes. She looked like a little hawk, ready to take flight.

“I don't want you to go.”

Ashara sighed and began folding the clothes she’d laid out. She’d spent months convincing her parents of her plan to search for a cure in Tevinter. That was hard enough. But while she’d mentioned it to Saeris off and on - the possibility of new ideas, perspectives, dreams, of a _solution_ to the thing eating Mamae alive - she’d never really managed to convince her sister that it was necessary.

She knew it would be the most difficult part.

“Saeris, I have to go.”

“But all the way to Tevinter?”

“Mamae and Papae won't let me go anywhere alone, and I don't think they’d trust anyone as much as they trust Uncle Dorian. Besides - Papae may not like it, but Tevinter has some of the oldest magic in the world outside of our own. If anything can help Mamae…”

Saeris dropped her gaze at last.

“But do you have to go without me?”

There was the knife, twisting in her gut. Ashara only vaguely remembered the years before she had a sister. In fact, her earliest memories were of sitting beside Saeris’s cradle, carrying on long, intricate, one-sided conversations about nugs and elfroot and dreams and the names of the stars with her tiny, soft little sister. It seemed like she’d always had smaller, lighter footsteps trailing after her own, someone to care for, someone to protect. She could put on a brave face and pretend that she’d avoided talking to Saeris about this for her own sake - but she knew the truth in her own heart.

“Saeris, you have so much you need to do back home - you’re still in school, you have your friends - you’re such a help to Mamae and Papae with your healing -”

“I don't want any of that without you there.” She frowned hard, just like she would when Ashara said she couldn't do something because it was too dangerous. “What if I need help with my studies? What if I want to go out and Mamae says someone has to go with me? What if Mamae gets worse while you’re gone? What if she -?”

“That’s exactly why I have to go.” She knelt and took Saeris’s hands. “I swear to you, little sister. I will come back and I will know how to fix this. I’m sure of it.”

Ashara was sure of many things in life: that her parents loved her and Saeris more than their own lives, that they loved each other, that Saeris was the best and brightest thing in the world, that they would always have each other. She carried that knowledge like a great golden circle, a miniature sun right under her ribs. And because that was true, it had to be true that there was a way to save Mamae. It had to.

Because Ashara had held her sister through many things: sickness, laughter, pain. She would not hold her through the tears she would cry if their mother died. She wouldn't. That day would not come.

“I’ve never had to miss you,” Saeris said softly. She had such a way with words. Ashara never would have thought to say it that way.

“I don't know - being the only child has its perks. I would know. I had them for five years before you appeared.”

Saeris snorted, but her mood didn't lift.

“You know we’ll see each other every night in the Fade,” she added.

“I know. Just - come home soon.”

“Of course. As soon as I can, little sister.”

They hugged, and Ashara made sure Saeris was the first one to pull away. The next day she left, smiling in the morning sun, waving good-bye to the three figures at the entrance to the keep behind her, trying not to think of the thousand ways she would miss them.

*

Saeris couldn't imagine life without her sister. But if anyone was going to find a way to save Mamae, it was Ashara. Ashara always knew what to do: how to make a flame so small and hot it burned blue, how to smile at a stranger so they would like you, how to make the prettiest plaits in their dense, springy hair. She made mistakes, of course - Saeris would never understand how her emotions could steal over her like lightning across a dark sky, would never forget the sight of Ashara wheeling furiously on Nellas, the boy who nearly killed her with his lightning, just because he’d spoken an ill word about Saeris, then cracked a smile when she woke from her injuries. But that was just it: even when she made mistakes, she found her way back from them, shrugging like there was no other way for it to happen.

So she missed Ashara more than she knew how to express. But the only thing that hurt worse was the sight of Mamae stopping halfway across a room because she was in too much pain. And Ashara would fix that, just like she could fix a nightmare or a broken heart.

She left some of her things behind in Skyhold, and if Saeris missed her too much, she would go and sit amongst them. It was where Mamae and Papae found her one day, a week after the bonding ceremony - after Ashara left.

“We’ve been looking for you, fenor. We didn't think to try here,” she said. “You miss your sister, don't you?”

Saeris nodded. It was an understatement. She missed Ashara the way she imagined Mamae missed her left arm.

“I do too. I - have to tell you something. I know we said we would return to Enasan soon. But… I haven't been well. And I don't think I’m well enough to go back.”

“So…?”

Mamae looked at Papae. He looked away. That was never a good sign.

“So I think we’re going to have to stay here in Skyhold. Until - well, until I’m well enough, or until I’m not.”

_Until I’m dead._

They never said the words, though. Ashara pointed that out to Saeris, once. They had never once said _when your mother is gone_ or _after I am dead_ or _Mamae is dying_.

“I’m sorry, Saeris. I am sure you want to return to school, and your friends, and the life you know. We would not have held the ceremony here in Skyhold if we thought this was a possibility.”

“I understand,” Saeris said.

“It’s fine if you’re angry,” Mamae said. “I would be angry.”

And maybe Saeris would be, eventually. Maybe she would wake up and miss her friends and counting the cobblestones on the way to school and the pretty girl who always sat next to her during lectures. Eirlin. But the truth was that nothing eclipsed the confusion she felt sitting amongst Ashara’s things, knowing she was gone. How much worse would it have been back home in Enasan, near the parks and markets and shops where she and her sister had explored and learned and grown?

Ashara hadn’t even reached out in dreams over the last week, contrary to her promise. Saeris was a Dreamer, too, though not as skilled as her sister - she could have found Ashara on her own, and could even sense her presence in the Fade each night - but it mattered that she had not come herself.

Maybe it would hurt no matter where they were.

“I’m not angry, Mamae,” Saeris said.

Both Mamae and Papae’s eyebrows drew closer together. These were their studying faces. They needed them now, because Saeris had a power that Ashara did not, and she knew it. She could feel or know or think a thing and keep it hidden safely inside of herself for as long as she wanted. It was just as well. She would have to be strong now. She would have to show them how grown she was, that she was someone they could rely on.

“Of course, you’ll still continue your schooling,” Papae said when the moment passed. “I will serve as your tutor, unless you would rather we find someone else.”

“You don’t have to,” Saeris said.

“Good. I am looking forward to our studies.”

She did thrill a little at the thought. It was rare to have Papae or Mamae entirely to herself.

“I have several courses planned, but if there is anything you have a personal interest in studying, we will certainly make time for it. Perhaps we could choose one or two books in the library, later?”

“I would like that,” Saeris said.

She beat Papae to the library, though. He had to go take care of Mamae. It was getting hard to remember a time when Mamae wasn’t sick, if Saeris was honest with herself. She was eleven when they all sat down to hear the news, and that wasn’t even the start of it. They’d waited a whole year before telling their daughters the inevitable. Now she was fourteen, and here they were - still hoping for some miracle.

Maybe it didn’t have to just be hope anymore.

Saeris was alone, yes. But she was not helpless. Her flames never burned as hot as her sister’s, and her dreams never delved as deep, but her magic swelled with a power that could knit torn flesh and make a still heart beat again.

Maybe she didn’t need to rely on Ashara in far-off Tevinter, after all.

They were starting a new chapter here. One where it was only the three of them, where she spent her days in stony Skyhold and not in familiar Enasan. One where she could not simply turn to Ashara and follow in her footsteps. She should do something that her sister would be proud of, while she was away. And maybe, between the two of them...

She’d wandered towards the section of the library on healing arts, and now she began to pay real attention to the titles she walked past. What would she need? Books on anatomy, on the interactions of the Fade with the flesh - there had to be a reason why there were Fade-touched hides and scales, after all - on theories behind how healing worked, exactly...

Her books selected, Saeris sat down to begin. Ashara would go far, and search the Fade for ghostly help in saving Mamae. Saeris would stay close, and search for practical ways, ways that relied on blood and bone. They were physically separate now, but they would find an answer to this unthinkable question the same way they’d done everything else in life - together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this short little start! I mostly wanted to get a handle on writing Saeris, since the majority will be in her POV from here on out.
> 
> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/)!


	17. Saeris & Ashara

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m back! Today’s chapter centers mainly on chapters 13 and 14 (["Skyhold"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10080125/chapters/23878329) and ["Trial By Fire"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10080125/chapters/24057426)), with references to the events of chapters 1-12. It is about a Teen rating because of one or two suggestive comments (though it's nothing serious).
> 
> I have done my best to cover all the relevant events/characters from those chapters through Saeris’s perspective. The only significant event that Saeris is unaware of at this point is that Lucius, the Laetan mage traveling with Ashara and her sort-of lover, was initially tasked with spying on her and her family. He has since come clean to her and decided to lie to his patron rather than spy. However, Ashara hasn’t shared this with anyone, so Saeris has no idea. As always, feel free to ask if you have not read “Awakened” and are confused!

On the eighth day that Ashara was gone from Skyhold, she appeared to Saeris the instant she entered the Fade.

“I am so sorry,” Ashara said, embracing her at once, her anxious excitement making the spirits around them chatter. “Time just got away from me. There were so many memories to search in new places…” She caught herself and leaned back from the embrace, instead putting one hand on each of Saeris’s shoulders. “No. No excuses. I should have come to see you. I said I would. How are you? How is Mamae?”

Saeris wanted to vent her hurt and frustration at Ashara at first, but the more her sister spoke, the more that impulse faded. The spirits around them chattered less as they both calmed.

“I am well. So is Mamae. We’re not going back to Enasan.”

“Papae told me earlier,” Ashara said, frowning. “I don’t like it. It isn’t fair to keep you trapped at Skyhold.”

“Mamae can’t make the journey,” Saeris said, though she would be surprised to find out Papae hadn’t told her that.

“I know,” Ashara said, her voice going softer. “It still isn’t fair to you. You should be studying for your exams and making friends and doing all the things I did when I was fourteen.”

“Papae is teaching me. He even said I get to choose some of what we study, so I’m focusing on what happens to creatures who spend a great deal of time in places where the Veil is thin. Maybe it will give us some idea of how to help Mamae.”

Ashara smiled. “That’s a perfect idea. I never thought of it. Well done, little sister. But still - find some fun up there, will you? There are some people your age about.”

“Humans, mostly.”

“So?”

Saeris let a breath out through her nose, and Ashara read the sign clearly enough to know not to press. They’d had this argument before. It wasn’t that Saeris disliked humans, exactly - only that they made her nervous. You never knew what they thought of elves. What they were going to say. What they were going to do. Ashara had no such fears.

“I’m serious, Saeris. Who knows how long you’ll be there. I don’t want you to be lonely.”

 _Then you should not have gone_.

She didn’t let the words slip free.

“I will try. Will you, once you get to Tevinter?”

“I suppose. I’ll at least get a chance to know Claudia better than before.”

Saeris was torn, then, between telling Ashara the same thing: _this should not consume you, if you’re going to leave me for Tevinter, you should at least experience what it has to offer, you should make new friends too…_ Because in the three years since Mamae truly got sick, how much had Ashara followed her own advice? How many times had she turned away her own friends because she was too busy? How many friends did she even have left?

But what if she found something in Tevinter that made her never want to come back?

“I miss you,” she settled on at last.

“I miss you,” Ashara said, squeezing her shoulders. “More than I thought I would. And I knew I would miss you a great deal. But we’ll get through this. All of us.”

“Yes,” Saeris said. “All of us.”

*

Saeris woke seven months later to an excited pounding in her chest. Today was the day. Ashara was coming home.

Seven months. Seven months in which Ashara first found nothing, nothing, nothing, and Saeris began hinting that she should come home. And then, a month ago, the discovery of a diary that led to this wild chase her sister was on: for stormheart, for veridium, for an enchantment that would let them move the power of the Veil out of Mamae and safely into cold stone. It was finally time. Time to see if that journey had been worth it. If it would work.

Saeris barely even registered the presence of her parents at breakfast, saying a brief good morning and then eating as quickly as she could, only half-listening to their conversation.

“Please show restraint, vhenan. You know that if you push her she will only push back harder,” Mamae said.

“Are you truly excusing her behavior?”

“Of course not. I’m only reminding you that she won’t listen to anything you have to say if you accost her.”

That caught Saeris’s attention. What had Ashara done? She’d been in and out of contact with them in the Fade for a fortnight and Papae had been growing more and more worried about that - he couldn’t seem to find her at all, and even Saeris had to admit that she was struggling to sense her sister - but how was that Ashara’s fault?

“She could have been possessed or killed, Ellana.”

Saeris put down her fork, stomach lurching, and looked rapidly between her parents.

“What?” She asked.

Mamae looked angrily at her father. “Do you need to frighten Saeris over this as well? Ashara is fine. We’ll see her in a matter of hours, and we will talk this through after she’s had a chance to settle in. I’m angry with her too, you know.”

“How did Ashara almost die?” Saeris asked again. “I just saw her last night - she said that Friend fixed her and there was nothing to worry about.”

Friend, the spirit Saeris had seen only briefly, when Ashara was still in Orlais, before this nonsense with their ability to sense one another in the Fade started. He appeared as an Elvhen man, tall and broad-shouldered like Papae, with dark eyes and dark hair. She hadn’t even had a chance to speak to him before Ashara whisked them both away.

“I don’t want him to know you,” Ashara had said. “Not yet. I don’t think he’s dangerous - but still. Stay away for now.”

That was two weeks ago. Now Papae’s eyes narrowed at the mention of the name.

“Precisely. I have no idea what the spirit has done to her. I intend to find out.”

With that, her father rose from the table and left. Mamae sighed and watched him go.

“Finish your porridge,” she said to Saeris, even though she sounded tired, even though she had barely touched her own food - something that was becoming all too common.

Saeris reached out tentatively with her magic, feeling for the problems in Mamae’s body. It felt like frayed cloth, an old garment slowly ripping apart at the seams, and no matter what magic Saeris called on, no matter how she tried to fix the damage, she could not. Instead she focused her attention on Mamae’s stomach, where she could sense the unease brought on by pain and the many draughts and tonics they gave her. They’d tried to incorporate soothing herbs into them, but now that her pain was increasing, the brews were too strong for even that simple cure. She closed her eyes and sharpened her attention one more time, willing the magic to soothe and cool the smooth lining of the organ, to take away the acidic sting. She felt her mother’s shudder as if it was her own.

“You’re getting very good at that, da’vhenan,” Mamae said with a little smile when she was done.

“Will you eat now?” Saeris asked.

“I will try,” Mamae said, and tore off a piece of bread as proof. Saeris tried not to focus on the thinness of her wrist, the slump in her posture. It didn’t matter. Ashara was home - maybe she was in the courtyard of the keep now - and all would be well.

Saeris excused herself from breakfast and got dressed and then found her steps directing themselves across the courtyard and towards the great gate. She couldn’t wait any longer. Papae was still angry - she saw him in the main hall on her way out - and she wanted to see Ashara before the storm hit.

Each step got lighter and lighter the further she got from Skyhold. She’d tried to follow Ashara’s advice, she really had - she’d circled close to the clump of humans that were close to her age once or twice, listening for a break in the conversation that she could join, but there was never a right moment - none of them ever came up to her anyway, so it wasn’t as if she was missing anything - no, all she was missing was her sister. That was at an end now.

She was so focused on her excitement that she’d nearly forgotten that Ashara wasn’t coming alone, until she saw the three figures in the distance on the mountain path. Of course. Lucius and Claudia. Claudia who she knew, at least a little, since she was Uncle Dorian’s apprentice and sometimes joined him on his visits. And Lucius who was entirely unknown, except that her sister had described him as quiet, and kind, and - a word she blurted out at the time - handsome. Her heart faltered, seeing them together. She couldn’t greet Ashara the way she wanted to if there were strangers. She couldn’t sink into the world they created between the two of them with the others there.

She hesitated on the path ahead of them until Ashara looked up, caught sight of her - and immediately broke away from the other two in a Fade step that brought her directly to her sister’s side. Then her arms went around Saeris and held.

“My sister,” she said, crushing her tight to her chest.

And, just like that, all was well. Ashara didn’t even look that different - she was dirty from the road and her hair was worse for wear, and she had on a new cloak, but she was the same, just the same. Saeris felt her whole body grow lighter with joy. They stayed like that until Lucius and Claudia caught up, at which point Ashara let her go and gestured to them.

“You remember Claudia. Lucius, this is my sister Saeris. Saeris, this is Lucius.”

“It’s good to meet you,” Lucius said with a small bow. “Your sister has told me much about you.”

“Well met,” Saeris said, studying him. He was tall for a human, broader than most elves but still slender by their standards, like most mages were. He had brown skin nearly as dark as her own, and short black hair that matched the black mustache and stubble covering the lower half of his face. And - she had to admit - his deep brown eyes did seem kind.

He had been a great help to her sister, she knew, from helping her get the stormheart and veridium she needed for the conduit to helping her kill a templar who threatened all three of them in that very mine. She glanced back at Ashara at that thought. Ashara had killed a man. Wasn’t that the sort of thing that left a mark?

“We should get going,” Ashara said, looping her arm comfortably through Saeris’s.

“Papae is angry with you,” Saeris said as they began, slipping into Elvhen.

“How angry?”

“No longer listening to Mamae angry.”

“Shit.”

“He said you could have been killed. I thought you said everything was fine. I thought you said this Friend was helping you.”

“Papae is just being dramatic. You know how he gets. Everything is fine. Claudia and Lucius both checked this morning and I show no signs of possession, and I’m obviously alive.”

Saeris looked up at Ashara swiftly. She said everything was fine, but she had allowed her friends to check for signs of possession anyway? That meant she was at least a little worried. Saeris reached out on her own, testing for any foreign sign in her sister’s magic. She’d barely begun searching when Ashara gave her a soft push with force magic, knocking Saeris out of her hold a little.

“I’m _fine_ , little sister.”

Saeris summoned her own magic and pushed Ashara back, making her sputter and scoff. “Can I see the conduit?” Saeris asked.

“Not right now. It’s deep in my pack. Have patience.”

“I’ll just take it after Papae murders you, anyway.”

Ashara groaned, slid her arm back through Saeris’s, and walked the rest of the way back to Skyhold in perfect, comfortable silence.

*

Mamae did her best to keep the peace when they reached Skyhold. She had on her best diplomat’s smile, managed to hide every wince of pain but one during their tour of the keep, asked friendly, inane questions whenever there was silence, and didn’t even scold Papae for drifting behind them and not joining in the conversation.

Papae just waited, silent. Until Lucius and Claudia parted from them at last to settle into their own rooms. Until they were back in her parents’ quarters. Until Ashara had set her pack down and begun cleaning the dirt of the road from her face and hands.

“What were you thinking?” He began.

“What do you mean?” Ashara replied as she rummaged through her pack for something, taking out a tunic as she did. It was singed and bloodied.

Saeris felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle.

“You know exactly what I mean. What happened to that tunic?” Papae demanded.

“Nothing - the Templars and soldiers from the mine, the ones I wrote to you about, but it turned out fine. And I have thought a lot of things in the last seven months.”

“And clearly none of those thoughts were for your own safety.”

Mamae opened her mouth - she was going to intervene and everything was going to be fine. Ashara started to say something to - but Papae dove back in.

“How could you be so unbelievably foolish?” He said. “Seeking the help of strangers you can’t possibly trust, chasing after wyverns with no effective plan, following unknown spirits in the Fade without anyone to help you, sneaking into mines, fighting Templars, opening your mind to an unknown spirit -”

“I -”

“This is exactly why I knew you weren't ready to go out on your own. I did not say anything at the time. I tried to believe that you would learn from the first bad decision and make better ones. But all you have proven is that you are irresponsible, impulsive, reckless -”

“Will you not let me speak?”

Saeris felt tears crowd her eyes and shut them, like it would make the scene before her go away. How could they talk to each other like this? Everything was supposed to be fine now. Their family was back together. She wanted to step into the Fade, fall through the floor, open her mouth and shout for them to stop -

“Is there any possible justification for any of this? You could have died, Ashara!”

“I didn't -”

“Didn't what? Didn't consider perhaps what you were putting us through as you rushed from one danger to another? What you were putting your mother through?”

“I have done more to help Mamae than you have in the last seven months! Everything I have done, everything I have risked has been for her!”

Saeris opened her eyes again.

It was impossible.

Ashara would never say something like that.

“Enough!” Mamae shouted. “You will not make this about me. You will not treat each other this way. Both of you just - go somewhere else. Now.”

Ashara was gone, the door slamming behind her, the sound making Saeris flinch. Papae lingered. He started to speak -

“You too. Out,” Mamae said, each word clipped and seething. Then Papae was gone, and Saeris was left standing there, forgotten, trying not to cry, trying to understand how people who loved each other could let their emotions blind them so, how they didn’t see that this wasn’t what anyone should focus on now.

Mamae let out a heavy breath and sat down, cradling her face in her hand. Saeris bit her lip, breathed the way she did when she meditated, thought about the joy of going for a swim in the summer - anything that would prevent her from crying, anything that would prevent her from becoming another problem Mamae had to deal with. One, two, three - there, the urge had passed.

“Should I go find Ashara?” She asked. Her voice came out smaller and more wavery than she thought it would. Mamae looked up. The diplomat’s smile was gone. She was so tired. So frail.

“I will go. Are you alright, love?” She said.

Saeris nodded. “I can help,” she said, though how she didn’t know. It was the grown-up thing to say, though, wasn’t it? Even if what she really wanted to do was go to her room and burrow into the covers and hide until they weren’t fighting anymore?

“Of course you can,” Mamae said, rising, wincing, trying to smile. “I am sure Ashara will want to talk. Maybe you can wait in her room?”

Saeris nodded, turned towards the door, and then paused. Without thinking further, she turned back and went to her mother’s side and embraced her tightly.

“Not so hard, Saeris,” Mamae said, though she returned the embrace. “It will all be fine.”

Would it, though?

It wasn’t as if Papae and Ashara never fought, she reflected on her way to her sister’s room. Ashara was an emotional person, the most emotional of the four of them. And she _was_ impulsive. Papae just couldn’t see what Saeris saw. Ashara always found a way. Always. Even if she didn’t have a plan at first, when had she ever failed to find one? Maybe she should tell him that. Maybe that would help. In the morning, she would go.

She didn’t have to wait too long for her sister to reappear, looking chastened, and sad.

“Are you in trouble?” Saeris asked, not sure where else to start.

“No,” Ashara said. “I owe Papae an apology, though. I’ll speak to him in the morning.”

Saeris’s heart eased. This was just like any other fight they’d had. Something they might not even remember a year from now, when Mamae was better and they were back in Enasan.

“Can I see the conduit, then?” Saeris asked.

“Of course.”

It was a sphere a little bigger than Saeris’s hand, heavy enough that she felt the need to hold it with both hands. Ashara explained that it was a layer of stormheart around a veridium core, enchanted with a particular kind of spirit rune that Dagna had once used to create Amulets of Power for all of the members of the Inquisition, as well as the runes and spells that Magister Estoris’s journal had described. Ashara called on a small piece of the Veil, the way their father had taught them, and Saeris shivered when she felt it drawn instantly towards the sphere she carried.

“The trick is that it isn’t actually destroying anything - it’s just moving it,” Ashara said. “And since it has the rune enchanted specifically for Mamae, it will seem like the energy is just moving from one place to another within her body. That should prevent it from reacting violently, the way it has in the past when Papae tried to remove it by force.”

“This is going to work,” Saeris said quietly, smiling. “You did it.”

“I think so. But that’s enough of that. Show me what you’ve been working on.”

After a quick trip back to her room, Saeris returned with all of her notes and diagrams on Fade-touched organic material, and they lost track of time pouring through it all, discussing whether a modified version of the poison magebane could remove the effects of the Fade, or if a templar’s cleansing powers could do it, or if a mage’s dispel might help. The discussion was all the better because it didn’t even matter now - her big sister had found the way, and this was all academic.

“Still,” Ashara said when their conversation wound down. “I wish you had found something else to study. Something just for you.”

“Isn’t that what Mamae has said to you for the last three years?” Saeris said.

“Yes, but - I’m the eldest. It’s my job. I want better for you.”

“Well I want this too. I want to help.”

“It’ll all be over soon anyway,” Ashara said, flopping back against her bed. Saeris followed, not quite touching, but close enough that she could. “And we’ll go back to Enasan and you’ll go back to school and everything will be normal again. Maybe you’ll even talk to that pretty girl again. What was her name?”

“Eirlin.”

“That’s right. Although,” Ashara rolled onto her side and pillowed her head on her arm. “If I go back to Enasan, I won’t get to see Lucius again. And, well…”

She was blushing.

“And?” Saeris said, something small and hard forming in her gut.

“I - like him. And he likes me. We’ve kissed - among other things.” She was blushing harder now, smiling, her eyes twinkling.

“What?” Saeris sat up. She hadn’t heard this. It was one thing to blurt out that he was handsome, but this? “Did you - did you lay with him?”

“No. He wants to wait for that.”

“But you can’t do that!”

Ashara frowned. “Why?”

Saeris fumbled now. She didn’t have a reason ready.

“Do you love him?” Saeris asked.

“Well - I could love him.”

“But he’s human.”

“And?”

“But he’s from Tevinter!”

“And so is Uncle Dorian! So is Claudia! So is -” Ashara sat up, scowling. “I expected this from Papae, but not from you. I thought you’d be happy for me. He’s - funny, and nice, and he’s helped me so much, and… what does the rest of it even matter?”

Saeris rose from the bed and paced.

“Because what if you do fall in love with him, and then you get married and move away to Tevinter and never come home? I want everything to go back to the way it was when Mamae is better. Just the four of us.”

This was exactly what she had feared. Her sister would go out into the world and not come back. Nothing would be the same again.

To her surprise, Ashara just laughed.

“I don’t know about all of that, little sister. That’s all so far off in the future. I’m enjoying what I have with him now.”

Oh.

Perhaps she was worrying over nothing.

“I guess that’s fine.”

“I didn’t realize I needed your permission,” Ashara said tartly, standing. She was beginning to get ready for bed.

Saeris felt guilty while she watched her. She hadn’t thought before she spoke. She should have kept those thoughts inside. Why had her usual calm failed her? It was a long day. That was why. Of course she should be happy for her sister. She would never really fall for this Lucius, anyway. She should mend the fence now.

“So - what was it like?” Saeris asked when Ashara was done.

“What is what like?” Ashara said, sitting cross-legged on the bed.

“You know,” Saeris felt herself blushing. “You said - kissing and - _other things_.”

“Oh,” Ashara said, and then giggled, and then hid her face. “I can’t tell you that!”

“But you have to! You said you would, when it happened.”

“That was before I actually had something to tell!” Through the gaps in her fingers, Saeris could see just how red Ashara was growing. “Good. It feels very, very, very, _very_ good. I’ll - tell you more when you’re older.”

“That’s what you said about kissing!”

“Oh, stop!”

Ashara moved lightning fast, and the pillow hit Saeris before she had time to react. It nearly knocked her off the bed before she caught herself with a barrier. They sat there, laughing, feeling lighter than either of them had in months. They were hundreds of miles away from Enasan, but for the first time in months, Saeris felt at home.

“Should I go?” Saeris asked when they quieted. “I mean - maybe he wants to come and see you. Or, you know - _see_ you.”

“No,” Ashara said, climbing under the covers and patting the bed beside her. “I want you to stay.”

Saeris’s heart glowed.

*

When they woke, it was second nature to change from their sleeping clothes to simple, practical robes. To stretch themselves out on the floor, taking hold of each other’s hands to help deepen certain stretches. To splash water at each other while they were washing up. To get their staves and head out to the courtyard to practice their magic. They could do all of it without a word; it was a rhythm they’d known for years.

“Do you want to start with staffwork or spells? Or are you on to glyphs now?” Ashara asked, like it was any other day at home.

“Staffwork,” Saeris said. She liked it best: the ebb and flow of calling on the Fade and channeling it through the wood, the way it woke your muscles and your mind alike. She liked ‘accidentally’ swinging her staff too close to Ashara and making her leap away and then sputter angrily. She liked poking her sister in the ribs with the tapered end of her staff. She liked the little line between Ashara’s eyebrows, seeing how many ‘accidental’ attacks it would take to get her to finally lose her concentration and get snappish. She liked seeing how quickly she could win her back to good humor again.

Saeris was giggling, dancing away from Ashara’s annoyed jabs (“Why do you always _do_ this? I'm not practicing with you tomorrow!”), when Papae drew close to them, his hands clasped behind his back. Saeris stopped at once, mirroring his posture. It took Ashara another moment to notice him - a moment in which she managed to deliver a swift jab of her own staff into Saeris’s ribs.

“How do _you_ like it when someone does that?” Ashara said haughtily - but the haughty attitude disappeared at Papae’s sigh of frustration, which caused her to notice his presence. “Oh. Good morning.”

“Good morning, Papae,” Saeris chimed in, unfazed by the slight pain her ribs, particularly because she was already channeling healing magic towards it. It was a good morning. The best morning. So why wasn’t he smiling?

“Saeris.” She felt herself quail under his gaze. “I have stopped counting the number of times that I have reminded you that your staff is no toy. You are too old for such foolishness.” Then he turned to Ashara. “And you are too old to respond in such a fashion.”

Ashara looked down, but her free hand was clenched. This was the part where her older sister apologized, wasn't it? She said she was going to apologize to Papae. Why did the words seem to be caught in her throat now? The hard expression on Papae’s face softened a little when she didn’t look up.

“Would you give us a moment, Saeris? You can wait over there. Ten repetitions of Winter’s Grasp, please, although you don’t need to cast - just follow the motions we practiced, feel the energy, and then let it recede. I will have part of my attention on you.”

Practice? That wasn’t fair. She should just be allowed to wait while they talked. And she hated Winter’s Grasp. And why was Papae acting so angry when they were only fooling around? She didn’t argue, but she let her annoyance show on her face until he raised his eyebrows and she walked away, dragging the butt of her staff through the grass, to the space he’d indicated. She began her first repetition, sorting through the feelings she got through the Veil, reaching past the tempting call of spirit and creation for cold ice, aware that though Papae’s back was turned he would know what she was doing. What was he saying to Ashara? Was everything okay? Of course it was. How was Mamae doing that morning? Maybe she was not well, and that was why he was tense. She exhaled the energy away, shivering at the chill in her body from the magic. She almost wanted to fully cast the spell next time, if only to completely expel the sensation of cold. What could she choose as a target…?

“Hello.”

A little frost did escape her staff at the startling interruption, heading straight for the source - Lucius. He was quick with a small barrier, but his brown eyes were wide.

“I'm sorry.” They both said it at the same time, tripping over the words. He laughed, but it was a quiet, nervous sound. That eased her, oddly. She knew that feeling.

“Are you lost?” Saeris asked. It seemed like a logical question. Was it? She glanced towards Ashara, still deep in conversation with Papae. Ashara would know.

“Ah - not really. Just exploring. But I’m not entirely sure I could find my way back to my room, come to think of it.”

“Oh.” She twisted her staff back and forth in the earth, her cheeks already heating up in embarrassment. “Ashara is busy if you were looking for her.”

“So I see. I won’t bother them.”

“Good.” She made sure to meet his eyes again when she said it. He looked puzzled. She’d probably said something wrong, then.

“Well - I’ll just go see if I can find my way up to the battlements then. I hear the view is spectacular.”

He started to head towards the lower part of the courtyard, which would certainly have an entrance to the battlements - but it wasn’t the part with the good view. Saeris hesitated a moment - then called out to him.

“Wait,” she called. He came back to her. “There’s a better view from over here. And it’s faster this way, actually.”

“Oh,” he said. “Thank you.”

He made a small bow and was about to leave again when Ashara came over, jogging a little to catch him.

“Lucius! I was hoping you were out and about. I told Papae we would show you around for a bit before we went back to practicing. You could always join us for that, too, if you wanted.”

“So you can singe my robes again? I don’t think so.” The words had a teasing lilt, and he had an easy smile on his face now that Ashara mirrored.

“I said I was sorry!”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.”

“Surely there’s something I could do to convince you of my sincerity.” Ashara was standing closer to Lucius than was strictly necessary by the time she finished saying the playful words, and Saeris watched it, stunned. She’d never really seen her sister flirt so openly before, or with her eyes shining so brightly, so full of hope.

“I think you can just start by showing me the battlements,” Lucius chuckled. “Are you coming, Saeris?”

She nodded, and trotted after them as they started on their way. “Did Papae forgive you?” she asked Ashara in Elvhen.

“Yes. And speak Trade! I’m still annoyed with you, you know,” Ashara said, glaring, though there was little real anger in her eyes. “I’m going to have a bruise from that last little ‘poke.’ I can feel it already.”

“I could heal it,” Saeris suggested hopefully.

“Or you could just not cause bruises in the first place. I swear. Mamae and Papae always said they would have had more children if they could, but one little sister is enough. I used to wish I could make them take you back, you know.” She poked Saeris in the shoulder at the end of the sentence, but she was smiling, and Saeris smiled back. Lucius, however, had an odd, pained look on his face. Ashara caught it at once.

“What’s wrong?” She asked, touching his arm. It was a lingering touch - not a brief one.

“Nothing. Just - seeing you two together makes me miss my little brother.”

“Is he back in Tevinter?” Saeris asked.

“He’s dead,” Lucius said quietly.

Oh.

In the space of Saeris’s ashamed pause, Ashara put her arms around Lucius, a full and pressing embrace that held him tightly, one he returned.

“I'm so sorry. I should have thought of that before I made a joke like that.”

“No. I like seeing the two of you together.” The embrace ended, but Lucius kept a hand on the small of Ashara’s back. His eyes were on Saeris, though. “She needs her feathers ruffled sometimes, doesn’t she, Saeris?”

In a way, this was exactly what Saeris had feared - Ashara would go to Tevinter, and find something or someone that made it worth staying. She wanted to hate and fear him - but she found herself smiling too.

“Yes, she does.”

They walked the battlements for a little while, until their stomachs began to growl and it occurred to them that none of them had had breakfast (and that Papae was back inside the keep, and probably wouldn’t notice whether or not they actually did their exercises), and they decided to head back inside in search of something to eat. Lucius was a little behind them, still lingering to enjoy the view, which gave Saeris a chance to ask the question that had been plaguing her.

“What happened to his brother?”

Ashara glanced back quickly to see how far away Lucius was, then dropped her voice and spoke in Elvhen.

“He was killed in the riots in Tevinter, back when they had just ended slavery. An elf killed him. Lucius couldn’t save him.”

Saeris looked back at him at once, as if expecting to see something different about him immediately now that she knew. Then Ashara put her arm tight around her shoulder and leaned down to whisper:

“I will never let anything happen to you. I will tear the stars from the sky first.”

*

They went upstairs to Mamae and Papae’s room after they came down from the battlements, finding Claudia in the main hall and bringing her along too. Mamae hadn’t left her bed yet and that drew Saeris to her side at once, checking to see if there was something she could help with, but she couldn't sense anything amiss. Perhaps she was just saving her strength.

“Are we ready to try the conduit?” Ashara asked at once.

“Patience,” Mamae said, narrowing her eyes. “I’ve barely had a chance to meet your friends.”

So they settled in (though Lucius still seemed rather nervous, constantly smoothing his robes), and helped themselves to some of the food Papae had laid out, and bit by bit, Ashara, Claudia, and Lucius shared the stories of their journey, from their first meetings to their explorations of Minrathous and Val Chevin.

“If everyone is feeling rested, perhaps now would be a good time to see if this conduit of yours truly works,” Papae said when the stories wound down. Ashara was gone so quickly from the room that Saeris could feel the Veil ripple in her wake. Nervous excitement filled her from the top her head down to her toes. This was the end of the road at last.

Of course, the tests worked, because Ashara made the conduit, because Papae was the best mage there was, because there was no way their parents would survive so much for so long only to fall apart here and now.

Saeris was even given an important role in the ritual to come: Ashara was to guide the energy out of Mamae and into the conduit, and Papae would heal the damaged tissue, and Saeris would stand by to monitor how everything was going. If Papae needed to help Ashara wrangle the volatile energy, she would take over healing Mamae. If she sensed something was wrong, or some particular part of her mother’s body was too damaged, she would speak up and tell them what to do. She was important in this. She was going to help save her family.

And it worked.

The conduit worked - until it didn’t.

The energy flowed slowly, carefully, into the heavy metal orb in Ashara’s hands, and the healing energy flowed steadily from Papae’s hands, and Saeris even helped, healing places Papae had missed. Lucius and Claudia made sure they had enough lyrium, that they never tired or faltered. And none of that was enough.

Because when most of the green energy had vanished from Mamae’s bare back, when they thought they were truly at the end, there was a sudden resistance, like a cord drawing tight. Because suddenly Mamae was convulsing, falling from the chair, eyes rolled back. Suddenly Ashara was stumbling back with the force of the resistance. Suddenly no one was in control - except Papae, his voice ringing with power as he forced Mamae to fall asleep so that the convulsions would stop.

Saeris had never been so afraid.

“What happened?” Ashara asked at last, her voice unsteady. “I felt the resistance and I felt you start to unravel it - but then it was like the energy was everywhere all at once - but we’d removed most of it - so where did the new energy come from?”

“What shone through her skin was only ever the part we could see,” Papae said, his voice unsteady. “I always sensed more beneath it. But not as much as we felt in that last surge. It was widespread - everywhere inside her all at once - it was -”

“- it was in her blood,” Ashara said then, voice soft with horror. “Magic lives in the blood. Friend - the spirit - he told me that. And if it’s in her blood, the way mana is in any mage’s blood -”

“It may be capable of reproducing infinitely,” Papae finished. “Even if we overcame that resistance we experienced today - I don’t know that we could ever be certain of its full removal.”

Papae was holding Mamae’s still form carefully across his lap, but from where Saeris stood she could see the truth of what he’d said. As they’d performed the ritual, the green glow cracking through Mamae’s skin had receded. Now it was returning, burrowing back through the flesh they’d healed, as if they’d never done anything at all.

“That’s fine,” Ashara said. “We know now. We know what to research. We’ll find a different way. We'll try one of Saeris's theories. We’ll find -”

“Ashara,” Papae said, as gently as he could. “We still need to make sure that she’s well.”

They could have made her worse.

They’d been in a secluded, forgotten room near the bottom of the keep for the ritual, since it was a place where the Veil was thin. They left now in silence, no hope buoying their steps. Papae went ahead quickly, Mamae cradled in his arms, and was soon out of sight. Ashara was moving quickly, too, Lucius and Claudia at her side. They were conversing in quiet voices, Lucius and Claudia both clearly trying to placate Ashara, whose own voice was furious. Saeris’s feet were too heavy to move as fast as theirs. They passed a door where, earlier, Saeris had felt a strange energy - heavy warding, and something behind it, something familiar, a magic signature she’d felt before. She’d meant to check on their way back out, but now it didn’t matter. Now nothing mattered except that they’d failed, and Mamae was going to die, and the world was not as kind a place as she’d always believed, and her father and sister couldn’t solve everything with sheer will alone -

She didn’t realize at first that the hiccoughing sob she heard echoing in the stone halls was coming from her own throat. Not until Ashara turned back to face her, wild with worry.

“Oh, Saeris..."

She let herself melt into her sister’s arms, the safest harbor she’d ever known, and cried like she was little again.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more chapters ahead! Thanks as always for reading.
> 
> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/)!


	18. Ashara Very Ill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our second-to-last installment! This covers most of the rest of “Awakened,” from chapter 15 (["One Last Time"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10080125/chapters/24185592)) to 20 (["Breathe"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10080125/chapters/24707850)). 
> 
> Important note #1: This chapter features our first significant divergence from the original plot, and is where our story grows much darker, which is the only reason this chapter is rated Teen. Be prepared for angst and a character recovering from a traumatic mental experience. No specific trigger warnings should apply - just know that this chapter isn’t sunshine and roses, nor is the chapter to follow.
> 
> Important note #2: In ["Body of Knowledge,"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8686498/chapters/19913758) when Ellana is pregnant with Ashara, Solas is filled with fear at the thought of his child entering a mortal world and dying. He hunts down an orb belonging to Falon’Din in Oruvun, a province in Enasan, and comes up with a plan to remove the Veil from Enasan alone, leaving the rest of Thedas as it is now. While Ellana is initially furious, after Ashara is born, she helps him come up with a plan to weaken the Veil slowly, over years and years, instead. This will be relevant to the events of this chapter.

Ashara felt like she was one raw nerve. Angry one moment that the conduit didn’t work. Scared the next that she would really lose her mother. Ashamed that in her haze after the ritual she hadn’t even thought to look to Saeris, to care for her, until she broke out into sobs. Tired, from the long ordeal of the ritual and from soothing her sister afterwards. Angry, scared, ashamed, tired. Where did it end? When?

At least she had the dream. The one that showed her the landscape she recognized: Oruvun, the westernmost province of Enasan, a place known for its deep connection to ancient Elvhenan. It showed her that landscape, and then two Elvhen slaves, speaking anxiously of some kind of blood magic ritual…

And if the magic was in Mamae’s blood - maybe Friend was trying to show her this? Why hadn’t he simply come in person as he had before? Why hadn’t she seen or sensed him since he restored her connection to the Fade?

Maybe she couldn't trust Friend.

But if she could trust this vision, maybe Mamae didn’t have to die.

But then Ashara told her mother about the dream.

“I don’t want you to pursue this,” Mamae said.

Ashara was sure she’d heard wrong.

“What?”

“It’s dangerous. You have no idea where this lead is coming from.”

“But -”

“Your mother is right,” Papae said. “I am still convinced that this spirit did something to you in ‘restoring’ your connection to the Fade. Until we get to the bottom of it, I would trust nothing you see there.”

“But what if it _isn’t_ a trick?”

“No, Ashara. Let it go.”

Now it was time for anger again, flooding her until her hands shook.

“What? Like I should just let go of the fact that there’s an eluvian here in Skyhold?”

At least she got the satisfaction of both of her parents looking guilty.

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice when you led us past that room below the keep?” She said, not bothering to hide the anger. “The wards are thorough but any mage who knows what an eluvian feels like could sense it. Does Aunt Cass know it’s here?”

“No, she does not, which is why you must keep this information to yourself. You cannot tell Lucius or Claudia. You know it is illegal to have an eluvian in any country other than Enasan now.” Papae’s voice was low, firm. The voice he used to command.

“Then why is it here?”

“There were… matters requiring my attention in Enasan. I could not leave Saeris and your mother here alone for long periods of time, and your mother was not well enough to return with me. Asking a trusted agent to bring one here was the simplest solution.”

Ashara let out a sigh. He wasn’t wrong. She could push, but she knew he wouldn’t elaborate on exactly what “matters” required his attention anymore than he already had.

“I could be in Oruvun in a matter of hours if I used it,” she said, more quietly now, more hopefully. Anger draining away, leaving her hollow.

“No, Ashara.” Mamae said, her voice quiet, too.

Now was time for fear again. Fear that this was the end of the road, that there was nowhere else to turn.

“Then what do we try next?” Ashara asked.

Mamae and Papae shared a look, the way they used to when she would ask to stay out late with friends, sharing things she couldn’t imagine with their eyes alone. It was Mamae, again, who broke the silence.

“I don’t know, da’vhenan. Your sister has been doing some interesting research, but…”

But.

But as interesting as Saeris’s research was, she hadn’t tested any of her theories on a living, Fade-touched subject yet. What she had done with dead tissue didn’t seem that promising.

“I’ll start helping her.” Ashara’s voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere else. Someone who was numb. Defeated.

“Come here.”

She obeyed her mother’s quiet request, going to her bedside and taking her hand.

“You may need to start accepting that there is no cure. I don’t want my last months in this world to be spent with my family tearing itself apart searching for something that may not exist.”

Months.

 _Months_.

Ashara was choking, lungs closing up, screaming in her head but incapable of moving her lips. Everything she had done so far - none of it mattered.

“It’s okay, da’vhenan. You don’t have to hold back. You can let go.”

Her mother was squeezing her hand tight. Ashara had not cried in the hours since the ritual, not the way Saeris had. She felt the pressure of those tears now, so many they hurt. But she couldn’t cry. Not yet. Not now.

“I should go see if Saeris is awake,” she said instead, and left.

Saeris was, in fact, awake. She was sitting up in the bed they’d shared the night before, twisting her red curls around one finger, staring at the bedspread in front of her. She looked up when she heard Ashara’s approach, and though her gray eyes were not filled with tears, they were filled with something far more frightening - need, pure and simple. Need for comfort that Ashara wasn’t sure she knew how to give.

“Is she -?” Saeris began.

“Mamae is fine. No different than yesterday.”

Fine. Because this was fine now. This was what she had to accept. Their mother was slowly dying, and there was nothing to be done.

She sat back on the bed beside Saeris, who slumped forward in relief, and rubbed comforting circles on her back. Ashara remembered the first time she thought her mother would die - or at least she thought she did. She was only five, after all, when Saeris was born. Maybe it was just that the story had been told to her so many times that she thought she remembered it. Either way, if she closed her eyes, she could picture it: their home in Enasan, the smell of the autumn air coming in from a window someone had left open, sitting by the door to her parents’ bedroom with her stuffed nug clutched tight, because Mamae was screaming, _screaming_ , and even if it was a sound she’d never heard before it surely wasn’t a good one.

And she was so scared, because if there was no more Mamae, who would tell her stories when she went to bed with all the right voices for all the right characters (Papae never got them right)? Who would laugh at the stories she told about her toys (because no one had a laugh like Mamae’s)?

It was all fine in the end of course, even if it was a difficult enough delivery that the midwife told Mamae not to have any more children, as she learned later. At first, Saeris hardly seemed like a fair trade for so much fear and suffering - but now?

Now the fear was real. Mamae was dying.

How would it happen? Would there be screaming this time when she died, or simply silence?

Ashara took a long, ragged breath that made Saeris look up, and again she saw that look of pure and utter need. It didn’t matter how it happened, or when, Ashara realized then. It mattered only that she was there for her sister when it did. So she swallowed the tears again and managed a small smile.

“I’m sure she’d like to see you. Shall we go?”

Saeris nodded, and as they made their way back to their parents’ room, Ashara put all thoughts of the dream of Oruvun aside.

It lasted several days, this newfound resolve, this stitching up of every loose emotion until she didn’t recognize herself in the mirror anymore, until Lucius and Claudia both asked what was wrong, what they could do to help. She was beginning to think that she should tell them to go home to Tevinter- not because she didn’t enjoy their company, not because she didn’t miss their jokes and their stories and the ease they’d developed on the road, not because she didn’t miss nights at Lucius’s side, discovering all the ways her body could sing, not because she didn’t miss the way his smile made her heart beat faster. No. Because every time she was with them she felt her resolve crack. She felt herself want to melt, to scream, to cry, to fight against the cruel cage she’d trapped herself in. But what she wanted didn’t matter now.

Not until she had the next dream.

She entered the Fade and at once she was flooded with icy fear, because Saeris was there, Saeris bent in half with grief, Saeris sobbing, Saeris who looked up at her approach and asked:

“Why didn’t you go to Oruvun?”

Because spread out before her was Mamae, eyes staring and cold, so frail, so small, her body already melting to ash, disappearing in the wind, Saeris was screaming -

Ashara woke breathless, too frightened to even shape the Fade from within to make the vision disappear. Saeris slept on, apparently undisturbed. So it wasn’t her nightmare Ashara had found herself in, but something created within the Fade. A despair demon, no doubt. That was all it was.

But with her heart pounding, Ashara found it hard to slip back into sleep. She lay there staring at the stone ceiling of her room, hearing Saeris’s even breaths at her side, and wondering. What if this wasn’t the right thing to do? Waiting here in Skyhold for the end? What if that was what made her a failure as a sister? What if Mamae and Papae were simply being too cautious?

What if?

She was up and dressed before she’d really formed a conscious thought to do so. Her staff was strapped to her back. She needed to tell someone where she was going. Not Saeris - she would ask to come along, and if there was any danger, she needed to be left out of it. Not Mamae or Papae, of course.

Lucius. Lucius with his kind eyes, who held her hand after they killed the templar, who had come to her again and again in the last few days because he was worried about her.

Lucius who took both her hands and held them tight when she told him her plan, and said “You need to think about this, amata.”

She didn’t know what “amata” meant. Something to think about later, when this was all over.

“I have. And I’m going. You don’t need to come - I just wanted someone to know where I was.”

“I’m coming with you,” he said at once. “And Claudia will want to as well. Go wake her.”

 _This is the right thing to do_ , she told herself over and over again as she undid the wards surrounding the eluvian. It didn’t matter what protests Claudia raised. She could trust them to know this secret, to protect her against whatever came next. She would return home with answers, and never have to see Saeris the way she saw her in that dream.

Safe in that knowledge, Ashara stepped through the eluvian.

*

Saeris awoke alone, but wasn’t terribly concerned by it. Perhaps Ashara had simply gotten up earlier than usual to practice. Perhaps she’d snuck off to Lucius’s bed (a strange thought, but certainly a possible one).

She decided to go to the undercroft first, to brew a potion. She’d read about a new combination of herbs to soothe the stomach the night before, and she wanted to bring some to Mamae to see if it would help her eat. It was important for her to keep her strength up. Her research would certainly move faster now that Ashara was helping, but it might still take them some time to determine how to apply what they were learning to Mamae’s unique case.

It took her several tries to get the potion right, but once she was satisfied, Saeris went on her way. She was just crossing the main hall towards her parents’ quarters when she heard someone calling her name, and turned - to see Mamae limping across the hall.

Wearing her armor?

“Oh, thank the gods,” Mamae said when she reached her. Why were her eyes filled with fear?

“Why are you in your armor? And out of bed?” Saeris asked. Her magic reached out at once and she could feel the pain knotting up her mother’s body, the sore joints and stiff muscles and the hot flare of the foreign magic in her back. She could sense, too, the flow of a tonic for pain in her veins. Too much of it, in fact. More than she should have taken.

“Come with me,” Mamae said, taking her by the arm and pulling her towards her quarters.

“Mamae,” Saeris said, her heart pounding. “That hurts.”

Mamae didn’t listen.

They got up to her parents’ rooms and at once Mamae took her by the chin and looked her in the eye.

“Do you know where your sister and her friends are?”

“Aren’t they here in Skyhold?”

Mamae closed her eyes. “Shit.”

Saeris felt herself growing tense. “They aren’t? Where are they?”

“Was your sister there when you woke up?”

“No.”

“Do you know when she left her room?”

“No. Where are they? And why are you in your armor?”

Mamae let go of her and walked away, running her hand through her hair. “I was going to after them. I thought all of you had gone.”

“All of us?” Saeris looked around the room for the first time. “Where’s Papae?”

“He’s gone too. To Oruvun. I can only assume your sister and her friends went there too, but they must not have left with your father because he didn’t mention them in his note…”

“To Oruvun? How?” But then Saeris thought back on the day of the failed ritual - on the energy she’d recognized in one of the locked rooms, but hadn’t placed until then. An eluvian. “Why would they go?”

“Your sister had a dream,” Mamae said. “She thinks there’s something there that can help me. But it’s dangerous. I told her not to go.”

Saeris had the sense that these were things she shouldn’t be hearing. She hadn’t known about the dream. She hadn’t known that Mamae told Ashara not to go. And Papae went, but not with them? Was he not supposed to go either? Why had no one told her any of this? Because she was a child, the little sister, and they all thought she couldn’t handle these things but here she was with Mamae pacing in her armor, her body flooded with pain and pain medicine alike, and Saeris had to do _something_ but she didn’t know what it was -

“We need to stay here,” Saeris said finally.

“Of course you need to stay here,” Mamae said. “I was terrified that Ashara had taken you with her. But I need to go. I need to bring them back before they get themselves hurt -”

“What’s so terrible in Oruvun?”

Mamae pressed her hand against her eyes. “Never mind that. I’m trying to decide who to leave you with -”

“No!” Saeris said, reaching deep for the loudest, strongest voice she could find. Like Mamae commanding people in the memories she’d seen in the Fade, when she was Inquisitor. “We _both_ need to stay here. You can’t leave like this.”

She panicked after the words left her mouth. Was she allowed to speak to her mother that way? But Mamae just blinked in surprise, so she kept going.

“I’m the healer if Papae isn’t here, and I can tell you aren’t well. You took too much of that potion for pain. You have to stay here and let me take care of you. And Ashara and Papae and Ashara’s friends will be fine. They wouldn’t want you to go either. And I don’t want you to leave me alone to worry about all of you. I don't want to be alone here at all. So -”

She didn’t have a final point to make, she realized. She let the sentence trail off lamely. Mamae just stared for a long moment.

“Very well,” she said, weakly.

Now what?

“So... you should probably stay in bed,” Saeris said. “And... did you eat?”

“No.”

“Then I will get you something to eat. Here.” She held out the potion she’d brewed earlier. “For your stomach.”

She went down to the kitchen in a haze. Only once she was down there did she realize that she didn’t really know how much food to put on Mamae’s plate. She never served everyone else at mealtime. That was something only Mamae and Papae did. How would she know what was too much or too little? Did Mamae like a lot of butter for her bread or no? How would they know Ashara and Papae were safe out there? What were they going to do? What was there in Oruvun that could frighten Mamae so?

Saeris piled the plate high with food and went back up to her parents’ room, trying her best to hide the shaking in her hands.

*

An entire day went by.

The sun crossed the sky and sank down and the stars came out and Saeris named all of the ones she could while she waited for her sister and her father to return.

Mamae slept, on and off, aided by a potion Saeris brewed for her. Saeris didn’t. She needed to be ready when they returned. For what she could not say - but she knew she needed to be ready. They would come back. They would come back and they would have a cure for Mamae. She said it over and over and over again as she waited through that long night.

The sun came up again and there was still no sign of them. Mamae said they should go down to the eluvian and at least journey far enough into the Crossroads that they could find someone who might have seen or heard something of them. Saeris didn’t argue. She could still hardly believe Mamae had stayed behind when she demanded it.

It was in the Crossroads not far from Skyhold that they saw them. Papae, Lucius, and Claudia. All three of them in bloodied robes.

Where was Ashara?

Papae was carrying her, she realized, folded up like a doll in his arms.

“No,” Mamae said at Saeris’s side, voice soft with horror.

Saeris reached out with her magic, too frantic to think, just feeling instead - and, yes, there was a heartbeat, her sister was alive. Bruised and scraped and cut in places, but there were no broken bones, there was no internal damage. Had she been hurt and already healed? Saeris didn’t sense lingering healing energy, or patches of new tissue or bone… So why was Papae carrying her?

Then she saw the look in their eyes - in Papae’s, in Lucius’, in Claudia’s - as they drew closer. Hollow. Defeated.

“What happened?” Mamae asked, already reaching out for Ashara, touching her forehead and her cheek. “Solas, _what happened_?”

“Not here,” Papae said. His voice broke on the words.

“But she’s fine,” Saeris said. “I checked.”

Papae just looked away.

Ashara did not stir when they reached Skyhold, when Papae lay her at last on her bed. When Lucius and Claudia shuffled away, exhausted, after Papae thanked them quietly for all they’d done (but what had they done?). She did not stir when Saeris took her hand, when Mamae sat at her side, calling her name.

“It was Falon’Din,” Papae said at last, when they were alone. “He - or part of him, at least - that was the spirit that followed her from Tevinter. He managed to gain a foothold in her mind, to convince her to journey to his temple in Oruvun, and because of what we did with his orb, what we did to the Veil in Enasan - he was able to possess her.”

Orb?

What they’d done to the Veil?

It didn’t matter now, Saeris decided. Not when Ashara was so still.

“No.” Mamae smoothed the hair back from Ashara’s forehead. Her words were thick and slow. “No, no, not my Ashara, no -”

“I arrived shortly after she did. It was too late then. He’d already taken control of her. He offered to let her go and take me instead - we fought back, Ashara fought back against him, she gained control just long enough to use the Well in the temple to try and purge his spirit, but -”

Falon’Din. A temple. A well. Possessed. They were words Saeris knew but not words she could make sense of. No more than she could make sense of the way Papae was speaking. Halting, stuttering, broken. Ashara’s hand was warm. She focused on that.

“She did not know enough of the ritual. She fractured both their spirits between the Well and the Fade. We could not wake her. I went into the Fade to gather the pieces - I retrieved what I could from the Well - but Falon’Din fought us, again and again. It was difficult to keep him subdued, to keep him from taking full control of her body once more. We weren’t sure we would be able to subdue him a second time if he took control. Not with Ashara’s own mind so scattered. He is gone now. I am certain of it. But I fear -” he had to take a breath. “I fear Ashara’s mind was damaged in the process.”

“Damaged?” Mamae asked, looking at him at last. “How damaged?”

“I cannot say yet.” Papae looked away from her. “We woke her in the temple, but she was frantic with fear, incoherent, she didn’t know where she was or why she was there - we wanted her to wake again in a more familiar place. In her own time.”

“So she will wake up?” Saeris asked. The words tasted like acid in her mouth. Of course she would wake up. Of course she would.

“Yes. She will wake up.”

Papae sighed and Saeris could hear the tears in that sigh. It made her want to cry. Papae never cried. He felt things deeply, but he did not let them show. It made her want to embrace him, the thought that he was feeling this so deeply that he couldn’t help but let it show, but she couldn’t leave Ashara’s side. Not now. She had to be the familiar thing her sister saw when she woke.

When she woke. When she woke. She was going to wake up.

“None of you should have gone. None of you. Why didn’t you listen? Why didn’t you just listen to me?”

Papae had no answer for Mamae other than a soft “ _ir abelas_.” He found a chair eventually, and sat, his head in his hands. He slept. It was no surprise - Saeris could feel how low his mana was without even trying. She and Mamae did not sleep. They sat at Ashara’s side and whispered soothing words to her, and waited, and hoped.

Night fell, and Ashara still slept. Saeris lay on top of the covers beside her, trying to parse what she had been feeling all day. She didn’t have words for the feelings, really - they were too numerous, too overwhelming. Every day of her life she had woken knowing she could rely on Ashara. And now? Now that her sister might be damaged forever? The image that finally came to mind as she drifted off to sleep was that of a compass spinning endlessly, never finding north.

When Saeris entered the Fade, she felt Ashara’s presence at once. It took only a tiny push to enter the dream her sister was in - a fractured, broken place, every surface a shard of mirror, reflecting shifting images of elves with vallaslin, of blood, of the courtyard at their school where they practiced spellwork, of Saeris herself, of Lucius, of Claudia, of Mamae and Papae, of battlefields covered in bodies - it was a dizzying display. Ashara’s spirit crouched on the barren earth before these shards, unmoving.

“Sister,” Saeris said at once, going to her side, putting her arms around Ashara and hoping the frantic joy she felt would warm the Fade around them and still the shifting images.

Ashara was tense in her embrace. The images shifted faster. “Go,” she said.

“No,” Saeris said, holding her tighter.

Ashara turned then, and looked at her with searching eyes, frowning, like she was searching her memories. The shards of mirror behind them shifted again, and this time all of them showed Saeris - as a toddling child, a little girl, as she was now - and then Ashara took a deep breath.

“Saeris?”

Relief washed over her, cool as a spring breeze.

“Yes.”

Ashara reached up and gripped one of Saeris’s arms where they held her, and then closed her eyes. The mirrors went dim.

“I don’t - I don’t know -” She said, stopping and starting. “I don’t know what -”

Saeris didn’t respond. She didn’t try to wake them, or to say anything else. She just sat there with her sister on the barren earth, and waited.

*

Saeris woke when Ashara did, their shared dream fading at the same time. Ashara took several slow breaths when she woke, looking around the room as if seeing it for the first time. Her eyes landed on Mamae and Papae, asleep in their own respective chairs. Then she turned to look at Saeris.

“Good morning,” Saeris said.

Ashara wet her lips but didn’t say anything. She was struggling to keep her breaths slow and even.

“You’re safe now,” Saeris added. “You’re home in Skyhold. Everyone is safe.”

Mamae stirred at the sound of her voice. When she saw Ashara’s open eyes, she lurched up at once.

“Ashara - are you well? Do you need anything?”

Ashara let their mother take her hand but she tensed visibly, her breathing growing more rapid. “I don’t know,” she managed to say.

“That’s fine,” Mamae said, squeezing her hand, trying to keep her own voice steady. “Take your time.”

Papae was awake now, too, approaching the bed with grief written all over his face. His magic blanketed Ashara, searching, and she flinched.

“Do you know where you are?” he asked. She nodded. “Do you know who we are?” She nodded again. “Good. You will recover, da’vhenan. You’ll be just fine.”

Ashara swallowed hard, her breathing speeding up until she seemed to be choking on the air, until she curled up on her side and buried her face and wouldn’t speak to or look at any of them. She shook when Saeris laid a hand on her shoulder, shook harder when Mamae did too. The comforting words they offered did nothing to stop it and finally they stepped away. How could they have failed? Nothing was so safe as this, them, their family. What was there that they couldn’t fix?

“We need to give her time,” Mamae said when the three of them withdrew from her side.

So they gave her time but not loneliness, always ensuring that someone was at her side. There was little change at first. Ashara slept poorly and spoke little when she was awake. She could leave her bed - there was nothing wrong with her body - but she rarely chose to, other than for the necessities. She did not leave her room at all. Real life ground to a halt - there were no lessons, no scheduled meals, no magical practice. Saeris realized with a start on the second day that she hadn’t even checked on Mamae, not even briefly. She hadn’t even been thinking about her illness. Not really. Her mind circled endlessly around one thought alone: _Ashara, Ashara has to get better, Ashara has to be there, what can I do to make her better?_ Papae must have been caring for Mamae in secret moments that she didn’t see, even though there was something off between her parents now - no tender smiles or jokes or absent-minded touches.

Papae took Saeris aside four days after their return from Oruvun when she was leaving Ashara’s room, preparing to go back to her own and change clothes that she’d worn for more than a day by that point. He gestured for her to sit on a bench in the hallway, and then sat at her side.

“We haven’t forgotten about you, Saeris. I know this has been hard on you, too. How are you?”

He looked so tired. Old in a way she hadn’t ever seen him before. Like all of Skyhold was pressing down on his shoulders. Maybe it was the same weight she’d felt in her chest all day, every day since Ashara was hurt. She didn’t even know a person could feel that heavy, that lost. But he couldn’t know that.

“I’m fine, Papae.”

He frowned.

“You do not have to say that if it isn’t true. You do not need to carry any of this weight on your shoulders. That’s for us to do. Your mother and I. You know that, don’t you? We still need - want - to take care of you, too. No matter what else is happening.”

She thought about doing what she wanted to do for a moment. Curling up against his shoulder and crying, telling him that she was scared, that she felt like she was losing mother and sister alike, that it wasn’t fair, that she wished none of this had ever happened. But she knew that even if he said those words - even if he meant them - she didn’t want to put that burden on him. She wanted to be strong. Strong the way Ashara always was. The way she would be again. The way she had to be again.

“It’s fine,” she said. Her voice was small. Unconvincing.

He let out a breath through his nose, then stood. “Very well. If that is ever not the case - any time, day or night - you don’t need to hesitate to come to us.”

Saeris did give in then, to the impulse to hug him, quickly, tightly. He returned the gesture, and held on even when she started to let go.

“I can’t believe how you’ve grown,” he said, more to himself than to her. "But you don't need to grow this much. You're still a child. You're both still children. My children."

Saeris didn't know what else to say. She didn't feel like a child - Ashara was certainly not a child - but were they actually grown? So she let him continue to hold her until he was ready to let go.

*

Saeris had seen Claudia and Lucius in passing in the days that followed the trip to Oruvun, but she had not spoken to them. Not until later that day, when they were waiting outside of Ashara’s room, faces drawn with worry.

“How is she?” Claudia asked at once.

“We wanted to come see her, but she didn’t seem to recognize us back at the temple,” Lucius added. “We didn’t want to cause a problem.”

Saeris wondered how they were feeling. Close enough to Ashara to care, but not as close as blood and breath and bone, not people who could no more imagine Ashara failing to recover than they could imagine the sun not rising. But they were there in the temple, and Saeris had seen the horror of what happened in Papae’s eyes, even if he would not speak more of it than he already had - not to her, anyway. (Saeris had tried asking him. She wanted to know if it was really Falon’Din. How it was possible that he could escape the prison all the Evanuris were locked in. He wouldn’t say.)

She realized that she was lost in her thoughts when she saw the looming horror on theirs.

“She is - she knows where she is. She knows who we are. Some things are still confused. She asked what year it was the other day. She doesn’t talk much.”

Claudia looked at Lucius, eyebrows furrowed, lips twisted.

“I told you,” Claudia said, shaking her head, voice raw with something that wasn’t quite anger, wasn’t quite sadness. “I told you we should not have gone. We should have dragged her back to her room by force if we had to.”

Lucius opened his mouth to speak, and then shook his head.

Saeris saw an opportunity, then, for the answers she hadn’t gotten yet.

“Did she tell you what she was looking for?”

Claudia frowned. “She didn’t tell you before she left?”

Saeris shook her head.

“Some ritual. She saw a memory of elves with those ancient tattoos, whispering about someone who could remove them. She said that related to your mother, somehow.”

Vallaslin. They were called blood writing for a reason - so had Ashara been after some kind of blood magic ritual, no matter the risks?

“Did she find the answer she was looking for?”

Now Claudia looked to Lucius again. He shrugged and let out a slow breath.

“I can’t say. Solas might know. So much of what Ashara - Falon’Din, I mean - said was in Elvhen.”

So - there was hope. Saeris let that thought lighten her steps as she went into Ashara’s room and saw her sitting up in bed, looking alert and calm. She was alone, oddly. Had she asked Papae to leave? She did sometimes, her eyes flashing with sudden fear. But only with him. Never with Mamae or Saeris herself.

“Claudia and Lucius are here to see you,” Saeris said. “Should I let them in?”

Ashara tensed a little and then rose from the bed, and went to get her robe. She nodded her assent. She was standing when they entered, fidgeting with the cuffs on her robe. Both humans had eyes full of pity, and that made Saeris angry. Ashara didn’t like pity. She didn't need pity.

“We just wanted to come and say hello,” Claudia said. “I spoke to Dorian through the crystal the other day - he says hello too. He is very worried about you. He hopes you’re doing well.”

Ashara nodded after a moment of careful study. “Thank you. For sharing his message. And… thank you for helping me.” It came out more as a question than as a statement. “Because - you did help me - didn’t you?”

Lucius was the one who spoke this time, his face twisted with the same grief Saeris saw in her parents' eyes when they thought no one was looking. “We tried. We...”

Ashara nodded again. “And I didn’t hurt you?”

“No,” Claudia said at once, though Saeris remembered all too well the blood on both their robes.

“Good,” Ashara said. “Thank you, for…”

She trailed off, as she often had in the last few days, like some thoughts were simply too difficult to express, or like she was trying her hardest to remember something that had just slipped out of reach. She would panic, soon, if she couldn’t think of it.

“Maybe we could all go for a walk?” Saeris said, trying to distract her. Ashara had said no every other time she’d offered, but maybe now, with Lucius and Claudia here, she would say yes. Her sister shook her head.

“That’s fine,” Claudia said. “But if you ever want to…”

Ashara nodded once more.

She was agitated when they left, pacing back and forth, biting the nails on one of her hands, her eyes glazed over with thought. It was almost familiar - she often paced when worried, and instead of feeling adrift Saeris knew at once what to do.

“What is it?” She asked, blocking Ashara's path.

“I was grateful to them - for - for - I know they were there at the temple but there was something else I wanted to thank them for - something before…” She met Saeris's eyes at last. “I met them a year ago? Was it - were they are Mamae and Papae’s wedding? Is that it?”

Saeris’s heart sank. “No. You’ve known Claudia for a long time. You just didn’t know her well until six months ago or so, when you went to Tevinter. And Lucius you’ve only known for a little more than a month. Remember?”

“Yes,” Ashara said, the word faint. “Of course. I remember.”

Her heart sank further, harder, heavier. “It’s fine if you don’t. You don’t have to lie.”

“I do. I do remember.”

But Ashara kept pacing the room after that, her lips moving to the rhythm of half-formed words.

She did speak more after that day, but it was always in the same confused fashion. Switching dates and places and people like they were pieces on a chessboard. Watching with hope and fear each time she did it, like a student before a teacher, hoping they’d chosen the right answer. She always insisted she’d remembered all along, though, whenever one of them corrected her.

Saeris’s magic showed her nothing when she examined her sister. Every other part of her was strong. She couldn’t see the damage to Ashara’s mind the way she could see a cracked rib or swollen gland. She couldn’t pull a solution from the Fade. That thought was what made her realize one day that she hadn’t touched her notes or experiments in quite some time. The ones that were meant to save Mamae.

“I’m sorry,” she said to her mother. “I promise, soon I will go back to studying. And I'll brew you more potions for your stomach. And - I can bring you dinner later.”

Mamae just shut her eyes, as if in pain, then smiled when she opened them. “Don’t worry, Saeris. Don’t worry about me.”

*

No one treated Ashara the same, Saeris realized in the weeks that followed, when her sister began to leave her room and spend time in other parts of the keep. Each person had their own way of walking on eggshells around her. Mamae brought her treats, held her hand, spoke in the soft, low voice she used to soothe them to sleep when they were small. Papae didn’t look her in the eye, and when he spoke to her, his words had to work their way through a closed-tight throat. Claudia barely spoke to her at all, but watched her movements with wide eyes, like a cornered animal. Lucius tried to smile whenever their eyes met, but the attempts never reached his eyes, which were filled with loss.

 _This is wrong,_ Saeris thought to herself, watching them. _She is the same, somewhere in there. Just the same. My big sister._

That was the solution, she decided. She would treat her the same. This wasn’t ever her job before - fixing things, holding things together - but if Ashara couldn’t do it now, then she had to.

So she did. She started to pretend that nothing at all was wrong. She began each day asking what their plans for the day were, and when Ashara shrugged or said nothing, she would speak:

“Don’t you remember? I have to write about the history of the Dirth’ena Enasalin. I need your help with research.”

“I think it’s nice enough today that we should have a picnic. I think everyone would enjoy that.”

“There’s a new merchant in the courtyard with a whole cart full of books. You promised me you’d buy me the next volume of _A Concise History of the Uses of Orlesian Herbs_ , remember? We need it so we can keep working on our experiments to help Mamae.”

“Your birthday is only a couple of months away. We should plan a party and decide what kinds of cakes the cooks should make.”

Sometimes it didn’t work. Sometimes Ashara was still so lost in her own mind, that she didn’t even respond. But most of the time it did. Most of the time Ashara got dressed and went wherever Saeris bid her to go, even if she spoke little, and didn’t focus her eyes on anything Saeris could see. _Remember, remember, remember_ became Saeris’s refrain. It wasn’t that unusual. Even before that awful temple, both of them were always sharing little things they remembered, prompted by the smallest details, like how the sight of a tall yellow weed would make them both laugh and recall all the times they made bouquets for Mamae, thinking they were fine flowers.

So Saeris kept asking: _remember when we went to Orlais and you got caught impersonating the comte? Remember when you scorched the kitchen table and Papae took the blame because he was the one encouraging you to practice your glyphs? Remember that song Mamae used to hum when we couldn’t sleep, how did it go?_

Until finally one day, in the close darkness of her room, when Saeris asked if she remembered the name of the ambitious young elf who kept trying to convince Mamae that he deserved a place in the envoy going to Antiva, Ashara snapped.

“I don’t remember, Saeris! I don’t!” Deep, angry breaths followed - and then tears. “I don’t remember.”

It was the first time she’d admitted it.

Something went out of her with the words - something big and full and heavy. She looked smaller sitting on her bed now, hands open on her lap, palms up. When she looked up at last, her face streaked with tears, it was with helplessness in her eyes. Ashara hated feeling helpless. So Saeris squared her shoulders, and began.

“Then I’ll tell you. It was last year, before Mamae stepped down from her post. Before we left for Skyhold. He kept finding excuses to come up to us in the market and he had the yellowest hair we’d ever seen, so you called him Ser Dandelion, but I can’t remember his real name.”

Ashara shook her head slowly. “I don’t remember. It feels like it never happened. Like my life never happened, Saeris. Like... like it’s all a bunch of memories I found one night in the Fade, and I don’t know where they begin and where they end. I keep trying to fix it, to figure it out, but… I don’t think I can.”

Ashara had never yet met a puzzle she couldn’t solve. She’d certainly never given up on one. Saeris just needed to remind her of that. That was all.

“But your life did happen,” Saeris said. “I was there. And you’ve always been there for me. Always. Nothing can take that away.”

Ashara looked at her for a long while, drinking in those words. Her eyebrows were knit together in a look Saeris knew all too well - she was ready to argue. But instead she nodded, slowly, in agreement.

The next day, when they were in the garden picking herbs so they could try a new treatment on Fade-touched tissue, Ashara finally admitted it.

“Falon’Din,” she said without preamble as she uprooted dawn lotus. “He told me. He told me how to save Mamae. I know he did. But I can’t remember now. Every time I try to think about the things he showed me - every time I try to think about that day…”

She put her basket of herbs down. Her hands were shaking.

“It’s okay,” Saeris said at once, taking her hand. “We’re working on it, aren’t we? We’re going to find another way. Somehow.”

Ashara nodded. “Somehow.”

She was getting steadier. Closer to the sister Saeris had always known. So she kept telling Ashara stories. Stories of how they used to pretend they had a pet deepstalker named Drakon and practiced taking care of him in order to convince Mamae and Papae that someday they could be trusted to care for a real deepstalker (and how, once they were old enough, they laughed to think they could ever find something like that _cute_ ). Stories of planning to steal chocolates from the kitchen in Elvhen, thinking Mamae wouldn’t understand because she only ever spoke Trade with them, only to get caught in the act with her smiling wryly at them. The story of how Ashara nearly died rather than let someone insult her sister. The story of the first time Ashara confessed that she fancied a boy in her class and wanted to marry him, only to have forgotten all about him by the next week. Some stories Ashara remembered, and she would join in the telling, or correct Saeris on some detail. Other stories she listened to with a blank, worried face. Others she began to recall as time went on.

She asked questions of her own, eventually, in the months that followed:

“Did we really swim naked in the woods when we went to visit Clan Lavellan?” (“Well, _you_ did - I kept watch.”)

“Was Nellas tall or was he short?” (“Tall. You’re thinking of his younger brother, Tamaris, who is barely my height.”)

“Did I love Lucius?”

That one sent a dart of pain into Saeris’s chest. Lucius and Claudia were long gone, of course, returned to Tevinter a month after everything happened. Ashara herself had encouraged them to go once she was well enough to do so, not wanting them to miss out on the bright futures awaiting them back home. Not for her sake. She’d watched them go with longing in her eyes, but she rarely spoke of them now that they were gone. As far as Saeris knew, she had not even visited either of them in the Fade. She did not venture far now, when she dreamed.

“I don’t know,” Saeris said. “I think you were starting to. Maybe you would have - if -”

“If none of this had happened.”

“Yes.”

“But it did happen,” Ashara said with a sigh. “So I suppose there’s no point in dwelling on it.”

Saeris saw a glimmer of the sister she knew in that response. That iron strength under the recklessness, the giddy joy, the constant flood of feeling. The rest would come back in time, as long as the strength was there.

So Saeris kept telling stories, and, slowly but surely, she sang her sister back to herself - and slowly but surely, Mamae grew weaker and weaker.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Thank you, as always, for reading!


	19. No One Else

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very bittersweet Teen rated chapter ahead, as we dive fully off the rails of what happened at the end of “Awakened” into a fundamentally different timeline.
> 
> This chapter tackles the death of a spouse/parent - though a significant amount of time has passed since the death itself, and it is not “shown” in any detail. However, it also contains fluff and hope (and a wedding!). There is some sensuality, but nothing to bump it above a Teen rating.
> 
> There are also spoilers for “The Masked Empire” in this chapter, though I kept them vague. (If you have not read it… go read it right now!)
> 
> This chapter goes out to [Kinako](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Kinako/pseuds/Kinako) for being a fantastically dedicated reader, and giving me the idea for who gets married in this chapter (and who they are marrying). Shout out to [WardsAreFunctioning](http://archiveofourown.org/users/WardsAreFunctioning/pseuds/WardsAreFunctioning) who, besides being an excellent conversation partner in general, was a good sounding board for some struggles I had with this chapter.

The Dales were beautiful in springtime, and the chateau Solas found himself in complemented that vernal beauty perfectly - and in the midst of spring beauty and song and cheer and toasts raised to his daughter’s wedding, Solas found himself grieving for Ellana.

It should not have surprised him - did not surprise him, in fact. Grief was something that never ended, no matter how many years passed. It did not matter that it had been ten years since he last held her hand. Heard her voice. Kissed her lips. The grief followed him with the surety of the tide, sometimes rising so high that he felt he was drowning, other times receding so that it was only a dull sound in the back of his mind - but it was never gone.

 _You would have been so happy for Saeris_ , he thought to himself, over and over again. _So proud of the woman she has become._

He could almost hear her voice in reply: _I am proud. We did well, didn’t we?_

 _We did,_ he would say, and take her hand.

But instead his hand was empty, clenched loosely into a fist, as he milled through the crowds of Orlesians and Elvhen alike. When he pushed aside his grief he could scarcely believe that all of this was for his youngest daughter. Surely it had only been a week ago she’d been clinging to his knees, afraid of every stranger who spoke to her. It was yesterday that she finished her studies and became a spirit healer, wasn’t it? He was certain of it. Certain. Yet here they were, only a week to go until she would marry her beloved Vianne.

And all he could wish for was Ellana.

They had never been to this particular chateau together before when she was alive, but it was similar enough to the ones they visited that he could just picture her in the crowd as he avoided conversation - there, between those other two elves, her red hair, the elegant curve of her neck, her slender shoulders - there, there, there, Ellana -

He caught himself before he took another step, his heart in his throat. It was Saeris, of course, her arm securely around Vianne’s waist, Ashara at her side laughing at something one of them had just said. The illusion could only last so long. But from this angle, when he could not see the longer nose and narrower eyes and dimpled chin that marked Saeris as equally his daughter - if he held still, just here, and watched - he could pretend it was Ellana.

“Who are you watching so intently, messere?”

Solas started, then recollected himself. A quick glance showed it was a masked stranger who’d appeared at his side. From the colors of his mask, some relative of the Beauvoir family.

“My daughters.”

The stranger followed his gaze. The three women had turned so their faces were now visible.

“Ah, I see them now. They are quite lovely. Such pretty smiles.”

“Yes. Like their mother.”  
He was truly feeling sentimental, to say such things to someone he did not know. He made his excuses and drifted away, finding a new vantage point from which to watch. They did both smile like their mother - the same broad, toothy grin. And that was perhaps the greatest cruelty of the grief that stalked his steps every day - that to see his children smile always cut his heart in two.

“The lack of merriment from one bride’s father has been noted,” said a wry, accented voice beside him.

Solas wanted to curse. There was nowhere to be alone in this forsaken place - though he supposed of all people, Briala should be allowed to interrupt him.

“My apologies. I think you can guess why this is a bittersweet occasion for me.”

The mask obscured Briala’s eyes well enough that Solas couldn’t quite read them, but he saw the twist of her lips that showed her sadness.

“I can only imagine. I do wish your wife was still with us.”

They had always been on good enough terms, Ellana and Briala, though Ellana had never fully trusted her. A wise decision. Though Briala’s support for ceding the Arbor Wilds to form the nation of Enasan was instrumental (and though they likely owed Celene’s support to her as well), she had never left Orlais in any permanent fashion. She was a woman who longed to know the truth of what it meant to be one of the People, who longed to see the elves free - and yet, when the door was unlocked, she had stayed in her gilded cage, and continued to weave her own webs.

Briala’s tone when she began again was careful. “Still, this is an important occasion outside of our families. Your melancholy has prompted rumors that you do not approve of this match. That is not the image we want to present.”

Solas did not bother to repress his sigh. “I am well aware, though I would remind you once again that this is not a marriage of politics. This is a marriage of people who love one another that happened to have political implications.”

“Duly noted, hahren - but the implications are still there.”

She was growing irritated. She only ever called him hahren when she was frustrated, he’d realized over the three years their daughters had been in love. A rebellion, he imagined, for the strange esteem she’d held Fen’Harel in as a result of Felassan’s stories, before she truly knew him. A rebellion for what he’d told her when she asked him at last what happened to her friend.

“I will ask Vianne to dance with me when the next song begins, and I will be sure to demonstrate my joy when I return her to Saeris’s side. My genuine joy.”

He made sure to turn to Briala on the last statement, hoping she would see the truth of the words. He had not always been - receptive - to his daughter falling in love. It worried him, not just because of who the girl’s mother was - but because he was convinced, at any moment, that she would be betrayed, that her heart would be broken.

But seeing Vianne look at Saeris with the same joy and wonder he felt when he thought of her? It was a light in the haze that filled his mind. His daughter was cherished the way she deserved. (If only the same could be said for Ashara - but that was a different weight in his chest entirely.)

“Good,” Briala said. “I hope this is a new beginning for Orlais and Enasan. A symbol that we can be friends, and not enemies.”

“I hope so as well.”

It was not a real political union, of course. Neither Saeris nor Vianne held an official title, whatever the notoriety of their parents. But they were symbols of their respective countries, of elves who came from fundamentally different backgrounds, and who were about to be joined as family in a time when many feared their countries were likely to go to war. At first he could hardly believe Saeris, sweet, shy Saeris, had agreed to such a lavish, public wedding. When he did accept that she would one day fall in love and wed, he’d imagined her under a sacred tree, speaking ancient vows to her betrothed in Elvhen, only a handful of people in attendance.

“I am not a soldier,” Saeris said when he asked. “I can’t fight in a war. But if this can stop a war from happening…”

Things had not been well between Orlais and Enasan. Not for many years. Not since the changes in the Veil became noticeable. They’d backed off then - Solas had actually deactivated the magic that was weakening it for several years - but the damage was done. Celene’s death had not helped.

Ellana would have approved of what Saeris said, he thought, as Briala took her leave and he waited for the song to end so he could make good on his promise. Well, Ellana would have griped about how helping Cullen plan the siege of Adamant was easier than ensuring that every dignitary and noble and diplomat was seated properly for the reception - but she would have approved. She would be happy to see a chance for peace, because that’s what these parties represented - a chance to get all of the relevant people in one room, to make deals and alliances that might stave off the coming conflict.

Ellana would have mused on that as she leaned on his arm. And then, as the song ended, she would have reminded him of the song they danced to in the Winter Palace. She would have smiled at the sweet kiss Vianne planted on Saeris’s lips when the music faded, to the chuckles of the crowd. She would have smoothed his tunic and kissed his cheek and remarked: _think how different it is now than when I was young. Think of how much good we have done. Think how our daughters have grown._

He nearly missed his chance to dart in and bow and ask if he could lead Vianne in the next dance. He had to compose his face into a smile, pretend he didn’t feel like he was missing a lung, like every breath without her wasn’t agony. Halfway through the dance, though, he was no longer pretending. Vianne was a good dancer, and had a lively smile, and he caught glimpses of Saeris and Ashara leaning on each other, beaming at him. This was still a good life that he had. He felt blessed more days than he felt cursed. When the dancing was done and he bid his farewells and retired to his room, he reminded himself of that.

Yes, he wished that he was not sliding into bed alone, that he was curling himself around Ellana’s warm, soft form, but it was not as bad as those first few nights without her ( _I will never hold her again, empires will rise and fall and I will forget the touch of her hand, I am alone, I am alone, I am alone_ ). Now he could remind himself that he had the memory of hundreds of sunrises falling across her face, of her padding barefoot through a house that was theirs, of her tired eyes and happy smile when she was holding one of their infant girls, of the sound of her soft laughter when he whispered a joke in her ear late at night. He held tight to those memories as he drifted into the Fade, an anchor against the tide.

*

“You look ready for bed, amour,” Vianne said when Saeris yawned for the third time in a row. She hadn’t even bothered to hide it this time. Her mind was an exhausted fog after so many hours of mingling and dancing. A happy fog - but a fog nonetheless. She could see some of the same exhaustion in Vianne’s big brown eyes.

“I think so,” Saeris admitted, stifling a fourth yawn. “Shall we make one last round and say our good nights?”

“Lead the way.”

They went arm and arm around the room, and once again Saeris found herself questioning her unbelievable good luck. How was _she_ the one with beautiful Vianne on her arm, this woman who spoke Orlesian and Trade and Antivan and was learning Elvhen the way a duck took to water? This woman who could rattle off the names of every major and minor player of the Game, along with their most recent wins and losses - and yet held so little love for its cruelty? Who’d grown up surrounded by humans who still spoke of the burning of Halamshiral’s alienage like it was the greatest act of Celene’s reign - and yet smiled affectionately at several of her human friends as they paced the length of the ballroom, promising she would sit with them at breakfast the next morning?

Saeris had been taken with her the moment she saw her in Montfort three years before. It was a salon that Briala was hosting, and Saeris had come along with some of her colleagues to present some of their new findings in the healing arts - both magical and nonmagical. Saeris had tripped over her own presentation (never one of her strong suits to begin with) several times - each time because she caught a glimpse of those brown eyes fixed kindly on her. She hadn’t even known that Vianne was Briala’s daughter, and another force behind organizing the salon. Not until several glasses of wine later that evening, when they stepped away from the salon for fresh air in the nearby garden.

“I’m not just here because I am fascinated by everything we’re learning, or because I want Orlais to maintain its reputation for culture and refinement,” Vianne had said, looking nervous for the first time that evening. “My mother. She organized this. Briala.”

And Saeris recognized the look on Vianne’s face at once in that moment. It was the face of a child who bore the weight of a parent’s legacy, and who was used to this moment being the one that either made or broke a connection with someone else. So Saeris made sure her smile was kind - and put her hand on the other elf’s.

“She did a marvelous job. I know she has done many other things for the elves of Orlais that are commendable as well.”

“Some less so than others. Though - I’d guess you might know how it feels. To have a parent like that.”

She had been introduced as Saeris Lavellan, of course, and anyone with half a brain would know who her parents were, but this was the first time in their conversation that they’d acknowledged it.

“I do,” Saeris admitted. “It’s not always easy, but I’ve always been good at not concerning myself with what others think of them. Or of me.”

“That’s a skill I’d like to learn, if you would teach it.”

And though Vianne had not withdrawn her hand when Saeris touched it, it was the lilt in those words that made her heart race for the first time in hope and anticipation. Not just because they were teasing, flirtatious words - but because of the thought that this lovely, well-spoken woman might think that Saeris had anything to teach her.

“You’d be very welcome in Enasan, if you ever came to visit.”

“A generous offer - one I will have to accept.”

And accept she did, and thus began the three year road that led to where they were now. A road that had not been without its bumps, of course - both Papae and Ashara were so suspicious at first, so convinced that this had to be a ploy, that no child of Briala’s could act without ulterior motives - and then Briala had turned around and said the same thing about a daughter of Fen’Harel - and there were the hundred ways that any pair of lovers had to learn one another. When to fight and when to yield, how to soothe an aching heart, how to remain close while giving space...

Her relationship with Vianne was so different than the ones Saeris had with the few lovers she’d known. After those early, uncertain months, there was so little of the constant anxiety she’d felt around the other women. Instead there was just a deep, abiding peace, a calm so encompassing it was like Vianne carried a piece of the Fade with her wherever she went (though she was no mage) and could wrap it around Saeris with a thought, blocking out the rest of the world and all its troubles.

Saeris understood, suddenly, those little moments she’d seen between Mamae and Papae long ago. The way he’d pause sometimes just to kiss her temple and then stand there for a moment, still. He was drinking in the peace she offered. Every time she thought of that, it reopened all the places in her heart that cracked when Mamae died. How could she ever go on without Vianne, now that she knew that kind of peace? How did Papae do it?

“What’s wrong?” Vianne asked, drawing her back to the present. “I fear you may have just snubbed the Comte de Arsene with that frown.”

“I’m sorry,” Saeris said. “I was just thinking of my father. I haven’t seen him since he danced with you.”

“I think he retired after that. I must have been a terrible dance partner.”

“Nonsense. He’s only…” _Grieving all over again for what we lost._ The fog in her mind grew denser.

“I know.” Vianne took Saeris’s hand and kissed the back of it.

They’d spoken of this several times before, of course. There had been tears the night they announced their engagement to Papae and Ashara. Tears for the incomprehensible hole at the table, the empty chair where Mamae would have sat. Vianne had remarked several times over the last three years, wistfully, how sad she was that she had never gotten to meet Ellana Lavellan. Each time, Saeris reassured her with the certainty that she carried with her every day: _Mamae would have loved you. She said so herself before she died. She told me that she would love whoever I loved, as long as they made me a happier, better person. She wanted me to know that. She wouldn’t have wanted us to be sad._

Her chest still felt tight. She still cast another look around the ballroom, as if she might suddenly spy her mother in a corner, smiling.

“I don’t believe I have seen your sister since then, either,” Vianne remarked after a short silence. “Ah, and there is Haleir. A pity. I had hoped they might have left together.”

Saeris followed her betrothed’s gaze and saw the elf in question. He was part Elvhen, like Saeris and Ashara themselves, and had been working with Vianne on several projects in Enasan related to a recently founded college of elven artists in the capital since she moved there six months before. Ashara had ducked several attempts to meet him in the past, but when he made the journey to Orlais for the first round of celebrations and ceremonies related to their wedding, they were able to ensure that the two of them met. Saeris thought for sure Ashara would like him: he was charming, intelligent, a mage, with the sort of calm, even-keeled nature that a person of her sister’s particular temperament needed.

“That might not mean anything,” Saeris replied. “Ashara is not - quick with that sort of thing. They’ve only spoken a few times. I doubt she would have taken him to her bed, even if she does like him.”

“True.”

Their final farewells made, they slipped out of the great hall and towards their own room. Before they reached it, though, Saeris paused. Ashara’s room was not far. She should go and see her. Just in case. It was odd that she left the ballroom without a word.

“Go ahead, vhenan. I want to say goodnight to Ashara.”

“Don’t take too long,” Vianne said with a smile that lifted one corner of her red lips. A smile that warmed Saeris head to toe. “When we go back to Enasan, it’s back to separate beds until the wedding. I want to savor my time with you.”

Saeris returned her smile. “Have I ever kept you waiting?”

“Only when I want you to.”

The kiss they shared was long and slow, and it cleared a little of the heaviness from Saeris’s mind and heart. The temporary good-bye over, Vianne went on her way, and Saeris went to Ashara’s door and knocked, entering at her sister’s invitation.

Ashara was dressed for bed, but she sat in one of the armchairs in her room, curled around a book, a few magelights surrounding her. At Saeris’s entrance, she flicked her hand to banish them, and lit the candles in the room instead with another flick of her hand.

“Sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep. I thought a dimmer light might make my eyes more tired.”

“It’s no problem. Did you enjoy the party?”

“I did, yes. More importantly, did you? Tomorrow’s the big dowry ceremony - not so much time for merriment then.”

“I did.” Saeris studied her sister, then, and judging that she was in a good enough mood, decided to press. “I saw you talking to Haleir earlier. He seems very nice,” she added off-handedly.

“I’m sure he is,” Ashara said, just as offhandedly. “Although I thought we were past the stage in our lives where you threw men at me.”

Damn.

“Well, I do apologize,” Saeris replied.“I was under the impression that you were interested in men. Should I start throwing women instead?”

“Very funny,” Ashara said, and closed the book in her hands a little harder than strictly necessary.

“What is that, anyway?”

“A history of Orlesian architecture in the Dales. It’s interesting - if a bit flippant in its dismissal of the Elvhen influence.”

Ashara handed over the book and Saeris turned it over in her hands, enjoying the soft leather of the binding. She was about to give it back and take her leave, but she couldn’t shake the image. Ashara slipping out of the party without saying anything, when she used to dance until the sun came up every time they came to Orlais. Ashara who used to wax on about all the grand adventures she would go on when she was old enough, who hadn’t left Enasan at all after they returned, when Mamae was gone. Ashara who smiled and smiled at the sight of how happy she and Vianne were, yet who had never felt the same joy. Who took no steps to try and find that joy. Who was the older sister, bright and kind, who deserved every happiness.

“I’m sorry if you don’t like it when I introduce you to men,” Saeris said at last, less flippant now. “I only want you to be this happy. I want someone to look at you the way Vianne looks at me. I know - I know you felt the need to stay close to home. For me. After Mamae died. But - obviously I’m taken care of now, and you don’t need to worry -”

“Don’t need to worry? You _will_ be legally related to Briala.”

“Ashara, don’t play,” she said, anger growing now. This had been her game in the last few years - deflecting.

“I’m not,” Ashara said, her own flippant tone gone. Her eyes softened. “You’re my little sister. I will always worry.”

“But you deserve a life, too. Mamae wouldn’t have wanted this for you.”

Perhaps it was the wrong thing to say. Ashara’s face closed off now. She folded her hands in her lap and looked away.

“I have a life, Saeris. Maybe - maybe not the one I talked about when we were younger. But I enjoy my work at the university. I have friends. I have you and Papae. It’s enough.”

But how could it be enough? How could she not want the leisurely afternoons curled up against the warm side of someone who loved her, someone who would bring her tea when she was sick and roses for no reason at all? Saeris wasn’t really aware of what had happened with her sister. Not at first. Not when she was crushed under the all-encompassing weight of Mamae’s loss (the clothes she would never wear again gathering dust in the armoire, the birthdays that passed without her, the way Saeris started to forget the sound of her laugh). Of course Ashara stayed at home then. She had to be there for the days when Papae couldn’t bring himself to leave his room, or for when Saeris needed help with her studies, or so Saeris could remind her who she was when she was shaking and frightened and lost. But - it had been years since those days. And now that Saeris was moving on into the best and brightest and newest phase of her life, she found herself looking back at Ashara, and wondering if she’d become too lost.

“It’s not just you or Mamae,” Ashara said at last. “How do I explain it to someone? You know we can’t tell just anyone what happened.”

She didn’t need to spell it out. Saeris saw the nightmares in the Fade, the way demons of despair were drawn to her sister like flies to honey, how they whispered of Falon’Din.

“You told Vianne,” Saeris pointed out, quietly.

“Yes. After you’d known her for over a year. After we were as certain as we could be that she was trustworthy. How can I ever get to that point with someone I care for? If I don’t tell them… how will they understand the night terrors or the days when I can hardly get out of bed? How can I build a life with someone that starts with a lie?”

Maybe that was what had gone wrong with the men who had tried to court Ashara to over the years. Maybe Ashara had felt herself about to fall - and then felt the enormity of her lie.

“Papae did it,” Saeris said quietly.

“That’s a terrible example.”

“Is it? I’m not saying that what he did was right, but Mamae forgave him in the end, didn’t she? He just needed to find someone he loved so much that he was willing to find the way forward, however difficult it was.”

Ashara shrugged, and turned away. She was trying to end the conversation. Saeris reached out one last time.

“You’re not broken, Ashara. You never were, and you never will be. You can have happiness.”

Ashara didn’t answer right away. But when she did, she met Saeris’s gaze.

“I am happy, Saeris. I promise. I’ll even talk to Haleir more tomorrow if it makes you feel better.”

Ashara’s voice was just soft enough, just gentle enough, for Saeris to believe her. She wasn’t living every day in misery. Not anymore. She could wish for more happiness for her sister - but she couldn’t force her to reach for it.

What would Mamae have done?

Saeris didn’t know.

Mamae died not long after she turned fifteen. They’d each gotten one more birthday with her. She remembered trying to soothe herself with that. Telling herself that fifteen years was a long time to have someone in her life. Not counting the number of years she might have without her - not stopping to wonder if what people thought was true. If elves like herself and Ashara and Haleir might live longer than their non-Elvhen counterparts. If there really was something different about the Veil in Enasan.

It didn’t work, of course. Fifteen years could never be enough time. Twenty wasn’t enough for Ashara. Twenty-five wasn’t enough for Papae. There was no such thing as enough time.

Her steps were slow back to the room she shared with Vianne, just as she’d once walked slowly to the room where Mamae lay so pained she could not move, as if by walking more slowly she could stretch out the time they had left. But once she was there she found the darkness was warm and close, and peace was waiting for her in the circle of Vianne’s arms.

“You’ll be happy,” Mamae had said to her towards the end. Her voice was reedy with exhaustion, but her tone was confident. “You’ll be happy again someday, da’vhenan. I am happy now, thinking of everything life has in store for you. Think of that, when you miss me.”

Saeris focused on that memory as she fell asleep. _I’m happy, Mamae_ , she thought to herself, as though her mother could hear. _Thank you_.

*

Ashara woke in the Fade and at once felt the pull of her father’s presence nearby. She didn’t answer the call right away - it wasn’t an insistent one, more an invitation to join him than anything else. Saeris’s words were still dancing through her mind. How could she make Saeris see that her efforts to find someone who would love her the way Vianne loved Saeris were futile without upsetting her further? She would simply have to let it fade. That was all. Saeris would become so wrapped up in her new life that she would forget, and let Ashara go on quietly in the peace she had found for herself.

That decided, she followed her father’s call and found him dreaming, of course, of Mamae.

The many spirits that had worn Mamae’s face over the years since her death seemed cruel at first. A pale imitation of the person they’d lost. Close enough to remember but not really her, always failing to get the exact timbre of her voice right, unable to replicate the way she embraced those she loved or the slant of her wry smile. Now, on nights like this, they were a comfort. They did not take the ache of missing her away completely, but they eased it.

Ashara settled in at her father’s side, not speaking, so as not to interrupt the scene before her. It was of a much younger Mamae, early in their Inquisition days it would appear, trekking through the Storm Coast, pausing to gather herbs and firewood, until she reached a cliff overlooking the churning sea. It was an oddly quiet memory, other than the rough sound of the waves and the rain pelting the plants around them. At first she couldn’t imagine why Papae would be watching it. But when Mamae reached the edge of the cliff the waning light lit up the curves and angles of her face, catching in the raindrops that clung there, illuminating the dark, curling lines of her vallaslin, and then she was so beautiful it made Ashara’s chest hurt.

“The scouts offered to gather the firewood,” Papae said then. “But she insisted. I offered to come with her. We didn’t speak a word to one another the entire time we were out - but I felt so at home at her side.”

The memory remained frozen before them, the spirit staying still at her father’s command, so both of them could drink in the sight of her face. Ten years. Ten years since she had seen her mother’s face in the waking world - and then it had not looked like this - then she was gaunt and tired and so very thin, struggling to breathe -

“I forget how young she was when you met,” Ashara said, trying to shake the other memory before it colored the one before them. “Younger than I am now.”

Papae considered for a moment. “I suppose so, yes. Though she hated it when I behaved as though twenty-seven was young.”

Ashara smiled to remember her mother’s narrow-eyed looks of disapproval.

“I’m nearly the age Mamae was when she had me,” she continued.

“Not quite. But close.”

Now the memory faded, and Ashara summoned one of her own. Mamae, pregnant with Saeris, reading her a story. It was one of the earliest she had of her mother. On days when she felt alone, when she felt scraped hollow with fear over things she could only half-remember (Falon’Din’s voice in her mind, her body no longer her own, all the things he showed her of Elvhenan, some nameless horror she couldn’t place), she could at least find her way back to this memory: sitting as close to her mother as she could on the couch, so close Mamae had to stop and say _give me just a little room, da’len, the baby is kicking me and you aren’t helping - I can’t hold the book and your hand at the same time, silly - will you turn the page for me?_ , listening to the rhythm of her words, the way she exaggerated just right when it was called for; feeling the warmth that radiating from the wide curve of her belly, watching with curiosity when she could see the tiny person inside move (even if the idea of having a little sibling was troublesome to her at the time). It was the safest place she could remember.

“That is a good one,” Papae said quietly as it faded. “I wish I had been there that afternoon.”

“I’m sure it was somewhere important, wherever you were.”

She’d always had that to be proud of, no matter what else swirled around their family. No matter what people said about Mamae and Papae, they were important, and they were doing important things.

 _Unlike me_.

“She’d done so much by my age,” Ashara said, idly.

For the first time since she arrived, her father turned to look at her. The corners of his mouth lifted in a small, sad smile. “She would still be proud of you, Ashara. I have no doubt of that.”

Ashara let the threads of the memory fall from her grasp and the Fade shifted nebulously around them, and for a moment she thought her father would simply let the Fade show them what it would, like something stretched tight returning to its original shape. Then the view around them cleared, and they were in the garden of Skyhold on a clear spring day, flowers and herbs in bloom all around them. Before them stood her mother and father in their samite finery, exchanging vows - and already you could see how sick Mamae was, but everyone was smiling, every last one of them, the fools - and yes, there she was. Stupid, naive Ashara, her mind full of dreams of Tevinter and grandeur and how she would fix things, idiot idiot _idiot_ -

“Da’vhenan.”

Her father’s voice was low, vibrating, warming and warning at once. Her emotions had grown too fierce. He was calming her and the spirits around them. He hadn’t called her da’vhenan in some time. She really had gotten too upset. Her feelings hovered one step away from her, loud and real and utterly beyond her control.

She’d closed her eyes - or, she supposed, shut off her perception of the Fade. When she was aware of sights again they were in a reflection of the very chateau where they slumbered.

“I am sorry,” Papae said. “It is a bittersweet memory.”

“Yes,” Ashara said. They were all bittersweet now. “Today was hard,” she admitted. “I missed her.”

“So did I.”

Ashara thought to leave then. Seclude herself in some carefully constructed part of the Fade that might let her find her way back to herself. Something that would give her the energy to smile and be merry for the ceremony the next day (because she was happy for Saeris, she was - that feeling just got lost sometimes). She was taking her leave when her father reached out again.

“Never forget - she made you promise to forgive yourself.”

Those words rankled her sometimes. _Never forget_ . As if she was ever _trying_ to forget. As if she _wanted_ the days when her mind would not clear and her life felt like a slate that had been wiped half-clean. The words landed softly in her chest this time, his meaning made clear with a gentle brush of his magic.

“I know,” she said. “And I’ll always try. That would be enough, wouldn’t it?”

Her father watched her with that ancient sadness in his eyes, deeper than the sea.

“Yes. That would be enough.”

As Ashara retreated to her own part of the Fade, she sensed her father summoning another memory behind her - an old dusty room - was that Skyhold? And her mother, perched on the edge of a table, grinning at him, young and full of life. She left her father to his memory, but carried that image with her into her own dream.

 _I am enough_ , she reminded herself. _I couldn’t save her but I am enough. She would be proud of me even on the days when I am not proud of myself_.

Tomorrow would be a good day, she decided. Maybe she would even talk to that Haleir again, if it would make Saeris happy. He wasn’t half bad. And even if it wasn’t a good day - even if she woke with the weight of a mountain on her chest and couldn’t find the energy to dress, let alone to smile and dance - she would try to forgive herself. And it would be enough.

*

Saeris was never entirely sure how well off her family was. She knew she would always have what she needed, no questions asked, but she and Ashara never dressed in the finery that some of their classmates favored. Just as it had taken her some time to recognize that it wasn’t normal to have your parents stopped on the street by strangers ( _what do you mean, people don’t know your Mamae?_ she’d asked a fellow student once when she was young), it took her some time to realize that they probably had more money than they ever let on. Even after that, she didn’t think much of it, until it came time for the dowry discussion between Briala and her father.

Of course, Briala didn’t care for riches. She wanted power.

“Giving us an eluvian would not only be a sign that you wish our families to be close, but a sign of unity between our countries,” Briala had argued.

“It would require representatives from all of the nations present at the peace accords to agree to the idea,” Papae had countered.

“Then some other artifact of importance to Elvhenan.”

Vianne winced at her mother’s tone. Saeris took her hand and squeezed it. Her own shoulders were tight. Papae’s eyes were narrow.

“Is this an actual negotiation, Briala?” Papae said finally.

“I’m sorry?”

“Will you truly withhold your consent from our daughters’ bonding if I do not give you a dowry that you find suitable?”

Vianne’s hand got tighter around Saeris’s. Briala’s lips thinned.

“No.”

“Good. Then I will tell you that I have had a gift in mind for my daughters’ dowries since they were quite young. I promise that it will be more than suitable, according to the tradition of my people and of yours.”

That stung. Briala didn’t like it when Papae said things like that. My people and _yours_. It made Saeris wince inside, too. Did he ever think that, looking at Vianne? Briala looked at Papae for a long, silent moment - then relented.

“Very well.”

“That went better than I thought it would,” Vianne admitted when they were back in the safety of their own room. “I was half afraid they would start a war.”

“They will never be close,” Saeris admitted.

“No. But they love us too much to really fight, I think. Until we have children, that is. Maker, the way they’ll fight over our children. They should be speaking Orlesian! They should be speaking Elvhen! They should learn to waltz! No, they should learn the ancient rituals to welcome spring! I vote we raise them to be Rivaini pirates and spite them both.”

Vianne did such a good imitation of each of their parents that Saeris couldn’t help but laugh, and wrap her arms around her waist and hold her close, and thank whatever gods there were for finding her this woman.

She and Ashara had speculated about what the dowry might be, of course. They found memories in the Fade of such exchanges in Elvhenan and saw that they were always mutual, unlike in many human cultures, where only the bride came bearing gifts. They were also, of course, highly symbolic - sometimes it was a cutting of an ancient, enchanted tree from one family’s lands, which would grow to attract benevolent spirits that would protect the other family. Sometimes it was a work of art that took decades to complete representing the joining of the two families. Sometimes it was a mastercrafted weapon, a symbol of warning to show the might one family would bring to bear if they were ever betrayed, and also something that might be used to protect their own child. Whatever it was, it always connected both to what the family was known for and to the relationship between the two new families, whether it was one of peace and equality or tension and social disparity.

“If I had to guess,” Ashara decided one day when they were out for a stroll through the market in the capital. “Papae would want to make something related to the Fade. It is the kind of magic that runs in our family, after all. And of course he paints. So perhaps an image? Something showing the union of two countries that have previously been at war, just as the spirit world and the physical world should be united?”

“That’s a good guess. But Papae said he’s had the gift in mind since we were young - so perhaps it will have nothing to do with Orlais.”

“True.” Ashara lapsed into thought, bought them each a sweet pastry from a nearby vendor, and then resumed. “I wonder if he will work in anything about Mamae.”

“He could use Dalish techniques in whatever he makes. Or the color red. She did always like red.”

“Or he could make socks. Or a quilt. Or a frying pan.”

Saeris sputtered out a laugh. “What?”

“Can’t you just see it? Papae off making some beautiful, ancient, complicated gift, and Mamae following him around saying _yes, vhenan, that’s all very good, but what will they wear when it gets cold? What will they cook on?_ ”

“The gift is for Briala, not for us.”

“Still. You just know she would want it to be something practical.”

“And then she would roll her eyes at Papae for disagreeing with her and spending half an hour explaining the logic behind his choice.”

They were both laughing through their words, but Saeris’s chest hurt with the sweet pain of imagining things that would never be. She and Ashara walked arm in arm after that, closer than they really needed to, and kept imagining.

Saeris woke with a thrill on the day of the dowry ceremony, though she and Vianne did linger in bed longer than was strictly necessary, remembering that this was the last morning they would have together until they were bonded, and there was much to be said for sunlight and bare skin and the surprised little sound Vianne made in her throat when Saeris planted a line of kisses along her ear. But eventually that had to end so they could put on their best dresses and go down to the ceremony.

It was all very formal, and Saeris slipped into the mental space she needed to get through such things - all eyes on her, speaking up in front of the large crowd. She found the quiet, still place in her mind that let her detach just enough that she was not afraid, and she watched as Briala gifted Papae with fine silks, masks, jewels, all the things they would need when they came back to Orlais to visit her at court. Vianne smiled through the exchange and Saeris took a chance to hold her hand when she could. She knew Vianne would miss Orlais, and her mother - the only mother she had ever known. After all, she had been so very small when her birth parents died in a terrible clash between noble houses (because it was Orlais, and though they were servants, they were not immune to the Game). Saeris knew, too, that it would be hard for Briala.

“She is the best thing I have ever done with my life,” Briala admitted once, not long after they were betrothed. The words made Saeris’s heart ache, remembering the letter Mamae left for her after she died. It had been so many years since she read hers, but she would never forget those words. _I am so proud of you, both of you, now and always. You are the best thing that ever happened to me._

“I will love her for all of my days,” Saeris said then. “I swear it.”

When Papae stepped forward, Saeris drew herself out of the past to focus closely, excitedly, on what he was doing now. She spared a glance for Ashara and saw that she was likewise sitting on the edge of her seat, her mouth open a little in anticipation.

Where Briala had come forward with attendants bearing trunks full of her gifts, Papae stood alone, his hands folded neatly behind him. When the hall fell silent, Papae unclasped his hands and held them out before him in a gesture of offering.

“My hands are empty,” he said. His normally quiet voice reverberated through the room. “Because the gift I would give is not one any of us can hold in our hands, though many of us might wish to do so. It is the gift of memory, and of time.”

 _Where is he going with this?_ The thought was only half-formed in Saeris’s head before her father waved his hand and brought the previously dormant rune on the wall behind him. The crowd around them gasped as the blue light flickered across it, and as they all received a sudden impression of a small, cozy house, and - it was _their_ house - and seated in the living room was a slight elven woman with red hair and gray eyes -

“Mamae.” It was more a breath than a word. Saeris’s throat was too small all at once. She groped for and found Vianne’s hand and squeezed it tight. She’d never felt a memory preserved by Veilfire so strongly. She felt like she might be able to reach out and take her mother’s hand and say _look, look, come meet Vianne, come stand by our sides when we say our vows, I have missed you so_.

The memory faded and instead it showed Saeris and Vianne, in that same house, laughing in the kitchen, their hands twined as they were now - then Saeris and Ashara, younger, dancing in a hall much like this one, on some trip to Orlais she couldn’t place - and then Mamae again, with Briala this time, smiling at some other party. The tears of gratitude were too near for Saeris to place any of the memories in an exact timeframe. And maybe that was the point.

“This practice is ancient,” Papae continued when the crowd had calmed. “It was once used to record history, to share knowledge, and to preserve the most important of memories. My gift is not only this particular rune itself, and all the memories I hope our new family will record here, but the promise of sharing such ancient magics with our kinsmen here in Orlais.” A murmur rose, likely at his choice of words. He sensed it, and went on. “Both human and elven.”

Briala’s face was hard to read. She was - pleased? - Saeris thought, but not entirely. Of course. This was a surprise. Papae had done this enchanting without her knowledge or consent. As she and Ashara had always predicted, the gift was many things. A sentimental offering of family memories - a warning, a display of magical prowress and of subtle dominance - a peace offering between their two countries in a public place -

A way for Mamae to be here on this day.

Saeris clung to that last thought as Briala bowed and spoke her acceptance. “We are honored by this, messere. May the bonds between our families - and our countries - only continue to grow.”

The ceremony concluded with applause and a retreat to another sitting room, where refreshments were to be served. Saeris wanted to go immediately to her father or her sister’s side, to share the warmth overflowing her chest at what she had seen, but Vianne tugged her gently away.

“We need to mingle, amour,” she said with a touch of sadness. “We’ll go see them soon enough.”

So they mingled, though Vianne did most of the talking, and Saeris kept one eye on her father and sister all the while. It did not escape her notice that her father was toying with the wedding ring he still wore as he spoke politely to strangers - the simple silverite band that was covered in Veilfire runes of its own. His own preserved memories of Mamae. She wondered which ones he’d chosen.

“What did you think?” He asked when she and Vianne at last made their way over.

“It was perfect. Ma serannas, Papae.”

“I am glad. I have collected many memories over the years, waiting for this moment to come for either of my daughters. I have even devised a way that you and your mother may contribute, Vianne, without the aid of a mage. It will likewise be easy for me to replicate the runes in multiple places, so that we all have access to them.”

“I cannot imagine a more thoughtful gift,” Vianne said. “I especially appreciated the chance to see your wife here today. It was truly special.”

Papae inclined his head, and smiled the sad, small smile he always did when someone mentioned Mamae. “It was.”

“Maybe we can go back later,” Ashara said, her eyes already drifting towards the door. “I want to see her again.”

Saeris’s heart was heavy and full and warm for the rest of the day as she watched her new family forming. She was whole, and ready to begin, and Mamae was with them.

*

Solas woke on the morning of Saeris’s wedding, went to his study, opened the small locked chest on his desk, and took out the last letter Ellana wrote him.

There had never been many letters between them. In fact, he didn’t have a single one other than the one that lay in his hands. There’d been no reason to keep the others. They were prosaic - more messages than letters. Every meaningful conversation they’d shared had been in person or in the Fade - which meant, of course, that there was no record of them now, except in his memory.

That made this one even more important - and it was why he had not read it yet.

He knew Ellana wrote to all of those she loved when her hand began to shake holding her quill.

“My handwriting is terrible enough,” she said. “I should do this now, or no one will be able to tell what I wanted to say.”

They hid them from the girls, of course. They were still hard at work, hoping that something Saeris had found would save Ellana. But his healer’s hands felt the weakening in her organs, the way the energy was corrupting and damaging them, and he knew. He held her through the pain, and he knew.

He was there when Dorian read his letter, hours after Ellana died, in a fit of disbelief. Like he expected it to tell him it was all a joke. That she had not just breathed her last, that her body did not lie there in the room nearby, already still and cold. Several of the rest of their friends waited for the funeral, and read them together, their grief a heavy cloak that blanketed all of them together. Saeris read hers not long after they returned to Enasan (and came to him only for a long embrace afterwards, refusing to speak of what the letter said). He never did find out when Ashara read hers. He feared to ask, to tell the truth. She was still so fragile then, prone to bouts of panic, of amnesia, of catatonic grief. It seemed easier to let it lie, now. She was not so fragile - but she had never truly been whole again, either.

And him? He waited. At first, he waited because it would be one more fresh wound, a cut across his already flayed heart. Then, because he assumed he would know when he needed it. He’d taken it out many times before - anniversaries, rainy days, nights when he could not sleep because his bed was empty and the sheets had not smelled like her for years - but he had not once disturbed the seal.

He turned the envelope over and over in his hand, then put it back in the chest. There were things to do. He wanted to personally oversee the preparations of the ceremony site. He wanted to check in with Saeris, ensure that she was not overly nervous. He wanted to go and visit with those friends who had made the journey for the wedding. He wanted to press his head to Ellana’s chest one more time and hear the steady beat of her heart.

He dressed, and made it to the door, before turning back to the study, opening the chest, and tucking the letter safely into his vest.

It tapped lightly against his chest the rest of the day, as he reminded the people they’d hired to prepare the feasting hall that Saeris only wanted a vase of Andraste’s grace at every _other_ table, as he shared celebratory sparkling wine with Leliana and Dorian and Bull, as he made his way to the small flat, not far from his own home, where Ashara lived. He forgot about its slight weight only when he entered the flat and answered his eldest daughter’s call, and rounded a corner to see Saeris in her wedding dress. There were a dozen details he could focus on - the dark green silk, the long train, the Elvhen embroidery - but what he found himself staring at was the simple, joyful, nervous smile on her face, and the way Ashara was looking between the two of them, beaming. They were beautiful in ways he could not count, his daughters, and they were something he helped shape, the surest sign that he did not destroy all he touched.

“Well?” Saeris asked at last.

“Perfect,” he said.

And it was perfect.

Saeris’s grip on his arm was tight as he led her to the aisle (and he imagined it was the same on Ashara’s arm on the other side), but it softened the instant she saw Vianne waiting for her. They didn’t swear oaths to gods or kings but to each other, and Saeris, their shy Saeris, beamed the whole while. Ashara smiled too, and cheered the loudest when at last Saeris and Vianne’s lips met, and lingered, and they were wed. Solas felt his own happiness like a solid stone in his chest, warming him from the inside out.

The band played music from Arlathan, Orlesian ballads, - and, yes, the song from that night in the Winter Palace, the one that brought to mind a chilly balcony and a smile on his face.

Dignitaries and politicians met and spoke and played their games, but no one spoke of war.

Saeris was laughing and smiling and kissing Vianne every chance she got and Solas knew all over again that they had done well, he and Ellana.

His hands felt empty without hers to hold.

Dorian and Bull and Leliana came and sat with him during one of the slower songs, when it was only couples dancing in the hall. They said nothing, but he felt the warmth of their support as surely as if it was the Fade, and his hands did not feel so empty then.

Ashara did not dance as much as he might have wished - but she did talk with that Haleir that Saeris and Vianne were always going on about for a little while. He was not a man Solas might have chosen for his elder daughter (too arrogant - would he know how to be soft enough, kind enough, to care for her in her darkest moments?), but it was good to see her speaking freely, even laughing.

Briala joined him at one point, already raising another glass of sparkling wine in a toast.

“To alliances,” she said.

“To family,” he replied, and he didn’t miss the little quirk of her lips that followed.

It really was perfect, he thought as the night went on. Perfect in every way but one.

It was that thought that led him out of the great feasting hall and into the small garden that adjoined it, where he sat and pulled out the letter. He turned it over and over in his hands, traced the word _vhenan_ on the front with his fingertip, and then ran his finger underneath the seam on the other side. It was almost an accident when the wax seal broke free. Almost. It took him another long moment to finally push open the envelope and draw out the parchment that sat inside. Then, at last, he unfolded it, and read.

 

_Solas,_

 

He had to stop there because his throat closed. The darling curl of her _s_ \- too much curve in the bottom part and too little in the top, Josephine always chastised her for that. When the pain eased, he went on, forcing his hand to stay steady.

 

_~~I don’t -~~  _

_I don’t know what to write, my heart._

_I wrote jokes for Varric and Dorian and Bull. I reminded Sera for the last time that I was the one who killed the Pride demon at Adamant, and that I’ve finally had the last word in the matter since she can’t argue with me once I’m ~~dea~~ gone. I told Cullen and Josephine and Leliana and Thom and Cassandra how proud I am of all they’ve done, how much I learned from them over the years. I even thanked Vivienne for the things I learned from her. I didn’t write one for Cole - I think he knows, somehow, everything I would say. I’ve felt him near me now and then, I think. ~~Maybe he’ll be the one to -~~_

_I told the girls all the things I wanted to hear from my mother when she died. I know you’ll be there for them in the time to come, to say the things I have forgotten. I try to find peace in that._

_But who will be there for you?_

_I have been trying to think of what you’d need to hear. What you always need to hear from me. And here is what I keep coming back to._

_I don’t regret a moment of our lives together. You were - are - so loved. And you deserve that love. I’m sorry I couldn’t stay and remind you of that every day (because you need the reminder, you infuriating, beautiful fool)._

_But is that enough? To say only that?_

 

The handwriting changed then. It was shakier. The letters were more faint. Perhaps she had written this on more than one occasion.

 

_Can I tell you what I’m proudest of? I was just watching you a little while ago with Saeris, helping her with one of her history books, explaining something about the Towers Age to her. And I could see it - the investment you have made in this world. Not just because it’s the world where our children live. Because I think you see it, now. What the rest of us always saw. You didn’t choose this world at first - but you chose it in the end. I am proud of you, ma’lath._

_Fenedhis, I’m terrible at this._

_Maybe there’s just no way to say good-bye. Maybe it isn’t a good-bye. Maybe it doesn’t end just because I do. Isn’t that a comforting thought?_

 

Another gap. The penmanship was even shakier, the words spaced too far apart.

 

_You’re asleep right now. I can’t sleep. I don’t want to wake you, though. You’ve been so tired lately. And I just want to look at you here in the moonlight, and remember. I want you to remember, too. I want you to remember this one simple thing: I love you. Maybe if I write it over and over, you will never forget._

 

He stopped there for a while, feeling the burning in his eyes, the inevitability of the tears. He wanted to gather those words close to his heart before he went on. _I love you_. He hadn’t forgotten, of course. But to see the words again in her hand, after ten long years… He closed his eyes, and listened to the distant sounds of merriment, felt the cool evening air on his face. Then he took a breath, and went on to the final part, separated once again by a small blank space.

 

_I would choose you. In a hundred lifetimes, on a hundred worlds - I would choose you every time. I would stand back at the beginning, knowing this moment would come - and I would choose you._

_Thank you for choosing me, ma vhenan._

 

Solas closed his eyes again when it was finished. The first breath that escaped him was a shuddering one, the kind that shook his shoulders until he bowed under the weight of his grief and his joy alike. He cried as he hadn’t cried for her in many years. The tears were quiet, chest-piercing. He dropped his head to one hand to shield the letter from them. He was vaguely aware that someone might see, that if it was Saeris or Ashara they might be upset, but it was a distant awareness. It felt good to cry. Cleansing. He could feel her there with him in every jerk of his shoulders, in the burn in his throat. It would not hurt if it had not been real.

The tears ended after a short while, leaving him light-headed and free. The night really was perfect now. Ellana was there with them in every way she could be. She had comforted him the way no one else could. He was not alone.

He attuned his senses to the party once more, and considered going back inside. Perhaps he had been missed. But the stars were out, and he was loved, and he decided to sit a little while longer with the letter in his hand, feeling at last at peace in a world of his own making.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is the last thing I have planned for this AU! I will most likely continue update this fic every now and then with a couple of prompt fills I have done/plan on doing on Tumblr. As always, prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on that [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/)! And thank you for taking the time to read :)


	20. Chocolat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope all of you wisely chose not to believe me when I said I wasn’t doing any more for this AU… because, as usual, I was lying. We all get to thank/blame [WardsAreFunctioning](http://archiveofourown.org/users/WardsAreFunctioning/pseuds/WardsAreFunctioning) for this sweet, sappy little continuation. She was kidding when she said she thought Ashara, with her love of food, should end up with an Orlesian pastry chef in this timeline - but the idea wouldn’t let me go, and so I wrote it. I hope you enjoy, friend!
> 
> Enjoy the fluff ahead! This chapter has a teen rating for incredibly brief, minute sensuality (like - even less than the last chapter). Chapter name shamelessly stolen from the movie of the same title.

*

The elf who started coming into Laurence Marchand’s patisserie every day was tall, and quite pretty, and though she was not usually smiling, he found that if he made sure there were small, frilly cakes ready by the time she arrived, he might see her blue eyes light up.

“I am happy my little cakes can make you smile,” he said at last, when she’d come in nearly every day for two months. Her smile grew wider at that, making her appear suddenly younger. Not that she was old - or at least he didn’t think so. It could be hard to tell with elves. She simply carried herself with a certain heaviness that made her seem older, until she smiled.

“My father loves cakes like these. My mother used to bring them home for him all the time. It was the one thing my sister and I got in trouble for taking from the kitchen. They’re quite expensive in Enasan.”

“And not half as good, I’m sure,” he said with an overdone air of pride. It won him a small laugh.

“There are many elves in my homeland who used to work for fine Orlesian households.”

“True, but what of the quality of your butter? The fineness of your flour? The size of your eggs? These are all things one must consider.”

She cocked her head at that, considering. “I don’t know. I’ve never looked into it much. I just like eating frilly cakes, not making them. Perhaps I will do some research and report back.”

“Is that what you are then? A researcher?”

“Yes. I just started here at the university three months ago. I used to work for the university in Enasan.”

“What did you research?”

“The Fade. I am a mage.” This last part was added with some hesitance. No matter how many years it had been since there were Circles, there were still people who hated mages. Before he could assure her, she stuck out her hand. “I’m Ashara, by the way. I don’t think I’ve ever told you that.”

“Ashara,” he said, taking her hand. “A pretty name. I am Laurence.”

Details came out slowly after that. She was born and raised in Enasan, fluent in both Elvhen and Trade, and picking up enough Orlesian to get by. She was thirty-one, only a year older than he was. Her sister was younger than her, at twenty-six, and recently married. Her father worked within Enasan’s government. When he asked about her mother, her eyes dropped to the cup of tea he’d just handed her.

“She died when I was twenty. She was very ill. But - before that - she worked alongside my father. That was how they met. She was Dalish, and she always acted as though she was confused to be working in politics, but she was good at it, and - I miss her.”

Ashara was like that, sometimes. Words would tumble out of her and she would look embarrassed by them. There was always something cautious about the set of her full lips. Appraising. She was watching his reaction.

“I am sorry to hear of your loss.”

“Thank you. It was a long time ago now, I suppose, but…”

She didn’t say much after that.

Sometimes a week would go by without her coming in, and while he was easily absorbed by the nonstop work of keeping the shop running, when he did note her absence, it was with sadness. He enjoyed talking to her. He enjoyed guessing what cakes she might like, surprising her with new flavors she had not heard of before. Most of all, he liked to see her smile.

It was rare for an elf to get such prestigious work outside of Enasan. Surely she was just busy, during those times when she did not come by. But - unless he was mistaken - she always looked more sad when she did return.

Chocolate was her favorite, he discovered. She was puzzled when he put sea salt imported from Seheron on top, delighted by the heat of powdered Antivan red pepper he slipped into the batter of another experiment, but he didn’t hear her moan with delight until the spring, when he decorated them the way he usually did, but tucked a raspberry puree inside.

“It would appear I will need to go to the market for more raspberries, if I want to hear you make that sound again,” he said.

She froze.

_Shit_. They were unthinking words, teasing, playful, but now that they were out there, he had to admit it to himself. He’d found her lovely the first day he saw her, but now he caught himself replaying the things she said because he liked her lilting accent, the brightness of her rare laugh. He’d sent all the way to Cumberland to get ahold of powdered red pepper, for the love of the Maker.

“My apologies, mon amie. Perhaps that joke was a bit forward of me.”

She watched him steadily, her brows a little furrowed in thought. “So - it was a joke?”

Well - nothing risked, nothing gained.

“A little,” he said. “But I have truly come to enjoy your visits. If you ever did want to meet outside the shop, someday…”

She was still watching him with those big, thoughtful eyes, like he was a puzzle. He was starting to feel a little unnerved by it.

“Very well,” she said at last. “What about tomorrow?”

He closed up the patisserie a little early the next day, and they went out for a walk along the river. He told her of his own family, his brother and sister and merchant parents, and how his father was disappointed when his eldest son wanted to study under the pastry chef of a nearby noble rather than learn the family business (his sister, he assured her, had a far better head for business, anyway. She even kept the books for his shop). She listened attentively, and asked him what it was like to study under the chef, and asked him how croissants were made, explaining how many times she’d stared at the tiny layers in confusion and wonder.

She wanted to know how he kept his butter cold enough for the process of making the croissants, if perhaps she could design an enchantment that might last longer or keep it even colder, and when he asked finally after her own magical abilities, she showed him: the way she could form a perfect, tiny flame in the palm of her hand, how she could lower a barrier over him and make his skin tingle, the precise shapes she drew to summon a particular kind of rune, how she knew which spirits to avoid and which to befriend. She explained how her staff worked, waxed on about the importance of proper balance of it - and then stopped, blushing.

“I’ve gone on too long, haven’t I?”

“No,” he said at once, though when he looked up, he saw just how far they’d walked, and was amazed. The sun was low in the sky, and they were many blocks from his patisserie. “Although - I could eat now. Perhaps we could find somewhere near here?”

Their fish dinner led them to the differences between Orlesian and Elven foods, her impassioned defense of how the elves of Enasan were picking and choosing from their range of heritages to create something new rather than clinging to old traditions. They rarely lacked for words, he found that night, and on the days they found to spend together that followed. But she was still hesitant, somehow. She walked closer to him than a friend would. He’d seen her blush when his hand brushed hers. She smiled when he flirted, and once or twice flirted back. She was not uninterested, then. Well. He had some time to spare.

“My family name,” she said out of the blue one day. “You never ask about it.”

“Lavellan?” He said. “Should I ask about it?”

“Well, there is one rather obvious question that most people ask.”

“You mean, about whether or not you are related to the late Inquisitor Lavellan? I thought it might be rude to ask such a question. Like assuming that all dwarves know one another. For all I know, Lavellan is a common enough Dalish name.”

“I see. That was kind of you.” Ashara twisted her cup of tea in its saucer, and then met his gaze again. “Inquisitor Lavellan was my mother.”

“Oh,” he said, stupidly.

“And my father is Fen’Harel. Well, Solas. But most people do not know him by that name. I hope you aren’t bothered that I didn’t tell you sooner. Most people end up asking, and I’m never sure how they’re going to react so I wait until they’re ready to know. You aren’t - bothered, are you?”

He was grateful in that moment for her tendency to fill up silences. It gave him a chance to collect his own thoughts. Which were - nothing grand, he realized. Perhaps because it was difficult to wrap his mind around the idea. No - because it didn’t change how much he enjoyed her intelligence, her gentleness, how much he wanted to lean down and kiss away the tiny smear of chocolate from the corner of her mouth.

“I am not bothered, no. I imagine it is a difficult thing to share with someone new.”

“Oh,” she said, almost surprised. “I am glad. It is difficult with some people.”

“And with me?” he asked.

She reached over and took his hand. “No. Not with you.”

On reflection, he felt that he should probably have had a bigger reaction. His father fought alongside Inquisition forces in the Arbor Wilds - had even caught a glimpse of the Inquisitor, as he told all those who would listen - and he’d heard Chantry sermons preached against the Dread Wolf since he was small. He had acquaintances who still called elves knife-ears and joked about crossing the border into Enasan and taking back what rightfully belonged to Orlais. But every time he tried to wrap his mind around it, his mind drew him back to Ashara’s careful consideration, the way she listened to every word that fell from his mouth and turned it over in her mind and asked him to tell her more. All that mattered about her parents was that they had raised a woman who was gentle, and thoughtful, and kind, who loved tea with honey and chocolate cakes, a woman who one warm day in early summer turned her face to his and kissed him on the lips, her arms tight around his waist, like she was afraid he would disappear.

It was slow and seemingly inevitable from there - spending as much time as they could together, discovering that she loved to be close to him, whether her arm was around him or his hand was on her back or she was simply standing close enough that the line of their bodies brushed. The sudden doubts he felt when she would be distant, or tired, or sad, and not tell him why. The giddy elation of hearing the Elvhen endearments she called him, of the way she sighed when he ran a hand down her back as he kissed her. The odd things he wasn’t sure if he should ask about - lapses in memory that confused him. Misunderstandings. His family wanted to meet her the instant he wrote about her, of course (though his mother fretted that Ashara was an elf, and worried about what to serve her when they arrived). She said she was not sure when she would have the time to get away from the university and for a day or so he doubted her, and wondered if perhaps she did not want to meet them. For all her love of closeness she shied, still, at more than a heated kiss goodnight - which was no trouble, but he sensed that there was something here, something he could not name, some mystery she was holding tight to her chest.

In sum? It was life, and it was beautiful, and he loved her, no matter what kind of day she was having - which was why it stunned him one day, when he was standing in his pantry and she was sitting on a stool outside, and she apologized to him.

“I’m sorry. I know I’m not easy.” It was one of her quiet days, when every word she spoke cost her so much effort that it was heavy as lead.

His heart ached.

“What do you mean, chérie?”

“Everything. My family. My moods.”

He stepped back out of the pantry and drew close to her where she sat, offering her his hand. She took it, and as he ran his thumb over the back of it, he thought back on the last few months, on all those moments.

“I still don’t know what you mean. Loving you has been the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”

And she rose, and she kissed him, and he held her, content to wait for her to find the words to say whatever it was she was keeping locked away.

*

_I have to tell him_ , Ashara woke thinking one ordinary winter morning. Laurence wasn’t even in bed, as a searching hand quickly told her. He was already down in the kitchen, as the clang of a pot confirmed a moment later. Her heart was pounding suddenly. She put a hand on her chest, as if that would still it, and tried to swallow past her dry mouth. _I have to tell him_.

She sat up, and tried to justify the thought. Why had it come now? It was months now, months since she first kissed him, since those early, terrifying days of realizing that she was falling, and that she didn’t know how to do it. Months since she would go to Saeris every night in the Fade and ask for assurance that she was not crazy, that she wasn’t missing something, that he really did care for her. In the last two months alone, she’d spent nearly every night in his arms, and on each of those nights he stripped her down, one way or another, until she was no longer quite so afraid. Yet his patient hands and and the quiet hush of the words he whispered in her ears had never once brought that thought to mind with such clarity as she felt it now.

_I should go tell him. Right now_.

The night before had been nothing out of the ordinary - it was cold, and they’d gone to bed early simply to enjoy the warmth of curling up under the blankets, and they’d fallen asleep quickly. So why now? Why did she wake now with the words already sitting on the tip of her tongue?

_Because this is good. Because this is safe. Because this is the happiest I’ve been since Mamae died. Because I want to keep it forever, and he has to know. He has to know what happened to me._

It was not a big lie - not even really a lie, maybe - but she still had to take a steadying breath before she got out of bed and went to tell him.

She pulled on her robe and sought a little fire from the Fade to heat her blood against the winter chill, and went downstairs. Laurence was still in the kitchen, his apron tied carelessly around his waist, flour already dusting his sleep shirt. She paused there, just to memorize the image. He was working dough with his hands, and did not turn as he spoke.

“Amour, the pain au chocolat are not quite done yet. I have rolled them, but they must rise for at least an hour now. I had a late start. Do you want that for breakfast, or something else? I do have those lovely currants - I could perhaps do a tarte instead, after I finish with this dough for the day’s bread.”

Ashara took a slow breath. He turned enough to see the look on her face.

“What is it? A bad dream?”

“I have to tell you something,” she said, stepping closer to him. He looked a little helpless with his hands still covered in dough - like he wanted to touch her, but couldn’t.

“I see,” he said gravely. She hated herself for the worry in his eyes. There was nothing to do but begin now, and hope it was gone when she was done.

“When my mother was sick, I tried to save her. I went to Tevinter.”

“So you have told me.”

There was nothing to do but begin.

“Yes. And - and while I was in Tevinter, I found a spirit in the Fade. One who said he would help me save her. I didn’t trust him, not really. But when my first attempt to end her illness failed, and I saw a vision in the Fade of a place where I might find answers - I didn’t stop to question whether or not I should trust it. I went. To a temple in Oruvun. He - the spirit - it was Falon’Din. The Elvhen god of death. He’d tricked me. He wanted me there all along. He -”

A slow breath in, and out. She focused on the cold wood beneath her feet, the smell of yeast and flour. One, two, three, four, five. They were only memories. She was safe.

“Amour?” Laurence’s voice rose with concern. She had to finish now.

“He possessed me. He tried to kill my friends. He - he got all the way inside my mind and my father had to try and get him out and - and he almost couldn’t. I almost died. And when Falon’Din was pushed out of my mind, he took pieces of me with him. And when I woke - I don’t even know how to describe it. My mind was shattered. I couldn’t remember what had happened from one moment to the next. I would wake up and not know my own name or where I was.”

Laurence had gone back to kneading the dough, though more slowly than usual. He wasn’t even looking at her. What did that mean? The words fell out faster.

“Saeris helped. She explained things. She helped me remember my own life and who I was but - as I remembered more, I remembered things I wished I had forgotten. Things from Falon’Din’s life. Awful things. Murder and torture and death. Things my father did. But the worst part was -”

No, she would not cry now. She wouldn’t.

“I remembered Falon’Din telling me how to save my mother. There was some - spell or some artifact or some ritual. I _know_ he showed me. But I could never remember what it was. That piece of me was just missing. And she got so weak and so sick and I tried and I tried and then - and then one day she was gone. And it was my fault. I failed her. I was a stupid girl who failed her own mother.”

Laurence shaped the dough into a round with gentle touches, then slowly wiped his hands on his apron.

“So - that’s why I have bad dreams. That’s why I’m - the way I am. Why I get so afraid and so angry and so sad even when I don’t want to. And I just - I thought you should know.”

Her heart was in her feet. He hadn’t said a thing. He hadn’t asked a single question. What was he thinking? What was he feeling? Was this the end? At last he turned to face her.

“Do you want the pain au chocolat, or the tarte?”

Ashara blinked once. “I’m sorry?”

“You’re always hungry right when you wake up. I feel guilty that breakfast is not ready yet. The least I can do is let you choose, non?”

“Laurence,” she said his name with disbelief, but then her hands curled into fists. “I just told you something I have only told a handful of people in my entire life - I just told you the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, the thing that makes me feel like I am broken and worthless and useless - and you’re just going to stand there and ask me about pain au chocolat and tartes? How can you - ? Why are you - ?”

She’d delayed the tears too long. She couldn’t hide them now. They were ugly things, loud and shameful. She hid her face. She didn’t see as Laurence put his arms around her and pulled her close. She only heard his voice, quiet in her ear, whispering endearments that only made her cry harder, louder, tears that had no clear sense or meaning behind them. They were not sad or grateful or happy or defeated. They were just tears, and then they were gone, and he was still holding her. He kissed her temple, and then the corner of her eye, and then he held her face in his flour-dusted hands.

“Pain au chocolat, or tarte?”

She took hold of one of his wrists and grounded herself in his warmth. His eyes were gentle and sad. “Will you come upstairs with me while we wait for the pain au chocolat to be done?”

“Of course.”

They didn’t say anything at first. Laurence washed off his hands and crawled back into bed with her and he only held her, and stroked her hair, while she waited for him to speak. He did, eventually. He thanked her for telling him. He apologized, as always, that he was so unfamiliar with magic and spirits and Elvhenan. He asked if it was okay to ask her questions to help him understand what happened, or if he should perhaps wait to ask Saeris or her father, to spare her the pain of trying to remember. She told him about the orb, her parents’ role in what happened. He told her he loved her, and then he kissed her for a long while, until he suddenly remembered the pastries downstairs. When he came back, it was with the pain au chocolat, warm and flaky and bittersweet. It was a quiet day after that - baking, and reading, and going out for a short walk in the evening - as if nothing had changed at all.

It was the sort of day they enjoyed for years to come - sometimes alone, sometimes with Laurence’s friends, sometimes with the Marchands when they came to visit - and then finally with her father and Saeris and Vianne, when they made the long trek at last to Val Royeaux. And - yes - Papae was surly when they walked the streets of the city, and asked probing questions over dinner, but Laurence brushed it all off with a smile. There was a dish of perfect, tiny strawberry cakes waiting for them in the shop, decorated with a fine Elvhen pattern in pure white frosting.

“See?” Ashara said. “Like Mamae used to bring home for you.”

As it usually did, the mention of her mother softened his face. “I see that,” he said, but his voice was gentler now.

Laurence watched him closely, to Saeris and Vianne’s amusement, as he ate the first one, and then grinned in triumph when her father couldn’t stop himself from reaching for a second before he’d even commented on the taste of the first. He remembered himself then, and gave Laurence a small smile.

“These are lovely. Such decoration takes great skill.”

Vianne laughed then, and said something in Orlesian that made Laurence laugh in return. Saeris furrowed her brow at her wife, and Ashara and her father could only look on in confusion.

“Ah, it is not quite as funny in Trade,” Vianne assured them. “Come - I simply must see the petit fours you described on our way over.”

Undressing for bed that night, she asked Laurence what all of that had been about. He chuckled, put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her neck.

“Vianne said it was unfair that I can make frilly cakes to win his favor. She says it took her months to get even such a small smile from him.”

Ashara laughed at that, and shook her head. “He can be - difficult. I apologize on his behalf, since he won’t.”

“He is no more difficult than any father with a beautiful daughter has a right to be, I think. Perhaps someday I will be as difficult with our own daughters, non?”

Ashara fumbled and nearly dropped the wooden cup she’d brought upstairs. “Daughters?”

“Yes. A pair of them, at least. What do you think?”

She met his gentle hazel eyes, and took in the way they crinkled around the edges as he smiled. Her pulse sped. She’d forgotten every word in Trade or Elvhen she ever knew.

“Laurence,” she said at last, stumbling over the first syllable.

“Do not worry, chérie. It is not the sort of thing one decides in a night.”

Words slowly returned to her as she lay in bed at his side, though it still took a while before she could roll over and spoon up behind him. He was a broad man, endearingly soft around the middle from all the sweets, and though she was tall, she couldn’t surround him completely the way he did when their positions were reversed. But she could put her lips up close to his ear and say:

“I’d like that. Daughters. Or sons. Or both. Or just you and me.”

She thought he might have been sleeping already, but then he took the hand she’d draped over his side and pressed it to his chest.

“Good,” he said softly.

It was months until they brought the idea up again, tentatively. A couple more months until she finally said it to him one day, on a walk back from the market, where they’d talked about whether or not he could buy a house separate from the shop, and what kind of house she would like, and what color the shutters should be.

“So - you’d like to marry me, then?”

He didn’t respond at first. Instead he waited until they got back to the shop, so he could put down the parcels he was carrying and take her hands.

“If you, my tall, beautiful mage, would have a lowly Orlesian baker for your husband - then yes. I would.”

Her heart fluttered, and she smiled.

Ashara did not walk the Fade as often as she had when she was younger anymore. Her mind was easy prey for demons - or at least it felt like it was. Papae told her she was fine now, that she had been for years. But she could never really trust the Fade again, after what happened. She usually let her father and sister come to her, if they wished to speak while they slept. When she did conduct research in the Fade on behalf of the university, it was through meditation, in broad daylight, with her colleagues nearby.

But she couldn’t wait another moment that night. She had to see them - tell them - now. So she reached out across the Fade and pulled herself towards the familiar song of her sister’s presence.

“I knew it,” Saeris chanted again and again, embracing her tightly. “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. I always knew you would find happiness.”

Her father was happy, too, in his quiet way. Not over the moon, but not scowling at the thought. He asked her, gravely, if she was certain she truly loved him - if she had thought through all the trials that would come from belonging to two different races, two different cultures, two different worlds - if she thought they would make their permanent home in Orlais, or if they would ever move to Enasan. When she was done answering, he just looked at her for a long time.

“Your mother would have loved him,” he said at last. “And the way he takes care of you.”

The Fade felt warmer and closer around them, like an embrace. It smelled of woodsmoke and pine and halla now - the smells Mamae herself had always brought when they entered one of her dreams. They were silent after that, and Ashara wondered if it would end here, if their minds would drift until they returned to their own dreams. She wondered if a spirit would come in Mamae’s form, if she would embrace it, and tell her she missed her, and that she wished every day that she could see her again. That Laurence could meet her. But then she realized that her father was watching her, and not losing his focus at all.

“What is it?” She asked.

He was smiling, but his eyes were sad. He gathered his words, and then he spoke.

“I’ll always wonder how it happened.”

“How what happened?”

He paused before answering, even opening his mouth once to speak and then closing it. He was gathering his words again. She knew this mood, now that she was older. He had so much to say that sometimes it overwhelmed him. She waited - and at last he shook his head and looked away from her.

“How both of my daughters ended up married to Orlesians.”

Ashara laughed, and so did he, and the Fade filled once again with the sounds and smells and sights of the things they missed, and the things that were to come.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd say this was the end, but we all know not to trust me when I say things are over now. I have other one-shots in the works - though none of them are for this AU - and since the description section is running short on characters, I may start a new one-shot/AU collection soon. I am also continuing work on a sequel to "Awakened" itself, which will come out... eventually?
> 
> As always, prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on that [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/)! And thank you for taking the time to read :)


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